Make the smallest Debian server for virtual server use

Mikael Ståldal has written a guide of how to make a really small Debian that you can use as a basis for your virtual server.

It still includes networking, bash and most importantly, the Debian package management system. The latter sets it apart from many other small distros, that have their own package management systems. Although the image is still 256 MB, it only consumes 6MB of RAM, which is good for virtual servers, where RAM is one of the more scarce resources.

If one concentrates on virtual servers, it ought to be possible to rebuild and strip the kernel of code that caters for hardware not used. I guess one then needs to analyze what hardware the different virtual environments pretend to provide.

To build a minimal Debian based Linux system with a fully functional bash shell, TCP/IP networking and apt setup to be able to install any package from the Debian repositories. The resulting disk image will be about 256 MB and consume about 6 MB RAM.

Läs mer: How to roll your own Debian based Linux distro | Mikael Ståldal’s technical blog