Linode RAM, counted before OS or after OS?
Hello, since I'm new to Linode I had a question regarding the RAM options in the shared CPU nodes and was wondering if the RAM is counted before the OS uses it or after it has taken some of the RAM for running the node.
Since I don't have a really demanding application for the node I just need the minimum RAM to run a small NodeJS application that uses sqlite3, I know that might take some RAM, but OS requirements of for example Ubuntu are about 1GB minimum so I want to know if I take a 2GB shared node I will only have 1GB for actual use or if my NodeJS app can use the full 2GB
1 Reply
jhartman
Linode Staff
In short, yes, the resources needed to run your chosen operating system come from your own allocated Linode resources.
The system requirements you mentioned are focused towards desktop versions of Linux, typically ones that come with their own graphical interfaces that require extra resources. Since all of our distributions are deployed as headless (no GUI), they require much less memory resources than a desktop version of the same distribution.
For example, I deployed a fresh Debian 11 Nanode and these were my out-of-the-box specs:
Memory:
Mem: 976Mi 56Mi 849Mi 0.0Ki 71Mi 814Mi
Swap: 511Mi 0B 511Mi
CPU/Processes:
12391 root 20 0 9968 3532 3064 R 0.3 0.4 0:00.05 top
1 root 20 0 99332 10060 7668 S 0.0 1.0 0:01.45 systemd