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Quote: "At 20MB, RancherOS is two orders of magnitude smaller than a typical Linux distribution, and an order of magnitude smaller than even other minimalist Li

by progman 12y ago

Quote: "At 20MB, RancherOS is two orders of magnitude smaller than a typical Linux distribution, and an order of magnitude smaller than even other minimalist Linux distributions." This claim is incorrect. Linux kernels can actually be as small as around 2 MB. The rest of a working Linux system (GNU, GUI etc.) does not belong to the kernel. http://superuser.com/questions/370586/how-can-a-linux-kernel-be-so-small http://superuser.com/questions/370586/how-can-a-linux-kernel... A Debian Linux distribution (kernel + stuff) can run in just 32 MB. For instance: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1522146/minimum-configuration-to-run-embedded-linux-on-an-arm-processor http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1522146/minimum-configura... Quote: "I've used a TS-7200 for about five years to run a web server and mail server, using Debian GNU Linux. It is 200 MHz and has 32 MB of RAM, and is quite adequate for these tasks. It has serial port built in. It's based on a ARM920T."

steeve 12y ago
Well, boot2docker is 24mb and is based on Tiny Core Linux, which is 9mb. So yeah, not true at all.
vidarh 12y ago
Our X "workstations" running Slackware back in the day used to have 16MB RAM. I don't remember how much disk space it had, but probably 300MB-400MB - I do remember 500MB drives were not that common yet. I've run Linux in embedded systems with 4MB flash and 4MB RAM too. It's harder to keep Linux slim these days without sacrificing all kinds of things we've gotten accustomed to, but yeah, it's pretty much down to how minimalist you are willing to go rather than how small it is possible to get.
LewisJEllis 12y ago
Let's interpret the claim precisely before calling it incorrect. What it asserts is that there exist some minimalist Linux distros around a few hundred megabytes in size, and this can be shown true merely by example. The claim notably does not use "all" or "every", so the existence of something smaller does not create a contradiction.

by progman 12y ago

steeve 12y ago

Well, boot2docker is 24mb and is based on Tiny Core Linux, which is 9mb. So yeah, not true at all.

vidarh 12y ago

Our X "workstations" running Slackware back in the day used to have 16MB RAM. I don't remember how much disk space it had, but probably 300MB-400MB - I do remember 500MB drives were not that common yet. I've run Linux in embedded systems with 4MB flash and 4MB RAM too. It's harder to keep Linux slim these days without sacrificing all kinds of things we've gotten accustomed to, but yeah, it's pretty much down to how minimalist you are willing to go rather than how small it is possible to get.

LewisJEllis 12y ago

Let's interpret the claim precisely before calling it incorrect. What it asserts is that there exist some minimalist Linux distros around a few hundred megabytes in size, and this can be shown true merely by example. The claim notably does not use "all" or "every", so the existence of something smaller does not create a contradiction.