Server distribution for an old computer

Sergey Agarkov2013-01-23 17:00:11

linux

Sergey Agarkov, 2013-01-23 17:00:11

I had an old computer lying around at my house:
AMD Duron 800 MHz , 192mb RAM , 40gb HDD Seagate, built-in video, I don’t remember the ASUS model.

I would like to hear advice on which Linux distribution to install so that it works quickly and security is on top.
A web server with a database (mysql and pg) will look at the Internet, host a maximum of 10 of my sites with little traffic.

Or will FreeBSD be faster and less demanding on hardware?

Of course, I can set up everything myself from scratch, maybe there are just some small distributions of this kind?

And what about the requirements of Ubuntu Server 12.04lts? Something they have the minimum requirements I have not found to iron.

PS And will such a machine pull even if you install a version control system (cvs, mercurilal ...) so that you can remotely synchronize your sources via the Internet and a couple more people can synchronize?

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11 answer(s)

Evgeny Yablokov, 2013-01-23
@Gular

Imagine it's a VPS. FreeBSD is an option, but almost any Linux can do. The main thing is to use the available resources wisely. Only Gentoo is better not to install. Install Debian.

SergeyR, 2013-01-23
@SergeyR

Put FreeBSD, it uses less memory than Linux, there will be more free for apache and mysql.

Sergey, 2013-01-23
@Ualde

Lubuntu will work, it requires 128Mb RAM, but I doubt it about the version control system.

holyorb2, 2013-01-23
@holyorb2

Any distribution that you know or know, you still need a console, so the performance difference will be minimal.
The version control system will work, but everything will slow down, including sites. If the sites are on some kind of cargo CMS, then even 1 site and 2 people online will seriously bend the server. Your muscle and site files will be on the same IDE disk, there is not enough memory, for example, the average Drupal site makes 450 requests to the muscle and pulls a lot of files - the page generation time will start from 3 seconds, and then it depends on the complexity of the site itself.

Nikolai Turnaviotov, 2013-01-23
@foxmuldercp

Take any cheap shared hosting or VPS and not suffer from this perversion, which, judging by the performance characteristics, can die of old age at any moment. It will be sad if it will be at the time of the presentation of the site to the client, when you will be where the devil is from the car.

3dm, 2013-01-24
@3dm

I have a stump3 550MHz 256 frames - for debian testing - I more or less ran a small apache + php + mysql site. But about 10, I don't even know :)

Vadim, 2013-01-23
@McDoe254

On such a configuration, it is quite possible to keep something like NAS4Free, but to host 10 sites is fantastic. Multiple requests will stupidly tear your hard like a hot water bottle. Yes, and on electricity on such and such a rarity, do not spend a lot of money. In addition, any "browsing on the Internet" is a potential threat that needs to be cut and cut. Assess your strength and the real need to be so perverted.

lubezniy, 2013-01-23
@lubezniy

On such a machine (the screw was 8 gigs, 128 RAM), ASPLinux 9.2 felt quite tolerably without graphics. At the same time, he served two or three dozen users as a Samba file cleaner. Now I would not use such hardware - primarily because of unfounded concerns about the reliability of the hard drive and, accordingly, all the information on it.

Yuri Popov, 2013-01-24
@DjPhoeniX

I personally have a PC nearby (Celeron, 415MHz, 384Mb RAM, 40Gb HDD), which carried several of my sites for 2 weeks after an accident at my (you know what) hosting. // Then dragged to VDS.
Worked great, no difference in speed (both network and generation) was noticed (I watched the page generation time through the time console tool). Website traffic is 5-6 people per day and a couple of bots, but, as a fact ...
Setup - Debian testing + nginx + php-fpm + xcache + mysqlnd. I abandoned apache more than six months ago, I never regretted it.
Ah, yes. After loading the base system, the memory consumption is 30Mb, after starting nginx + mysql - 92Mb, with a local load (12 tabs with auto-update once per second) it climbs over 170 and stays there. Never went to the swap.

ur3ckr, 2013-01-24
@ur3ckr

At home there is a similar machine in configuration. debian installed. In addition to the web server (mini forum, blog, etc.), there is also temperature monitoring outside the window, a video surveillance server, a torrent downloader, samba - so far it is coping with the task.

@mgyk, 2013-01-25
_

hmm, it's better to raise it on a raspberry, there is at least 512 memory :)