From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Q5kyt-0003Wz-D7 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:30:07 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id F272D1C002; Fri, 1 Apr 2011 20:28:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from out3.smtp.messagingengine.com (out3.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.27]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC7091C002 for ; Fri, 1 Apr 2011 20:28:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from compute3.internal (compute3.nyi.mail.srv.osa [10.202.2.43]) by gateway1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 774DA208D9 for ; Fri, 1 Apr 2011 16:28:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: from frontend1.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.160]) by compute3.internal (MEProxy); Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:28:30 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=messagingengine.com; h=subject:from:to:in-reply-to:references:content-type:date:message-id:mime-version:content-transfer-encoding; s=smtpout; bh=PCpQ1Bx8D5kITGW/KzzuHm5PvxU=; b=gl2t0wwaJ21wl9x28i3dSWrEtlDSsoTSKoU8JyCTsgrRLohbyt7zQ3mlcWt1jfhbjnt8UgN6EH0iQq2izl99JxfgY2168oVaP5xK01eGcJV9Q9mF4z+xrfT+Z5AHuXCLDE94+hQshO6kxKqnzGhbcPJ86XEeDwxZ4B6iUv81YK4= X-Sasl-enc: iaOuvwHkg9cUr7ZlK2TiUcFouOe5bpoHuxnLEoDkGM4/ 1301689710 Received: from [192.168.0.87] (65.23.112.45.nw.nuvox.net [65.23.112.45]) by www.fastmail.fm (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 323D24085C2 for ; Fri, 1 Apr 2011 16:28:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: How low can you go? From: Albert Hopkins To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org In-Reply-To: References: <1301684371.55806.3.camel@victoria> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:28:29 -0400 Message-ID: <1301689709.145877.12.camel@victoria> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.32.2 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: X-Archives-Hash: 074ec1c2b7b9c7c4db585500645f1319 On Sat, 2011-04-02 at 02:22 +0700, Pandu Poluan wrote: > Good grief! How'd you do that?! > > *bow in respect* > > Rgds, > > Well, firstly, I managed to get it down to 3MB (though I cheated *a little*): lilpenguin ~ # sync ; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches # kinda cheating lilpenguin ~ # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 43 5 37 0 0 1 -/+ buffers/cache: 3 39 Swap: 0 0 0 lilpenguin ~ # uname -srm Linux 2.6.36-gentoo-r8 x86_64 lilpenguin ~ # df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/vda1 4.0G 157M 3.6G 5% / shm 22M 0 22M 0% /dev/shm So what it is is this: * kvm with virtio devices * no udev (static /dev) * serial console only * no services in default runlevel * tight module-less virtio-based kernel (booted externally) * no extra (virtual) hardware * everything compiled with -Os I got the disk space down low by removing everything not needed to boot and get into the system (which means the portage tree, compiler, etc), but that has nothing to do with the memory usage. I could probably get it lower by tweaking the kernel a bit more. Also it would probably use slightly less RAM if it were 32-bit. Also, the biggest user of memory are /bin/bash and /bin/login. I could minimize memory further by making the login shell ash or dash.