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I want to use my old netbook for a Wordpress server (2Gb ram, 1.6GHz CPU), and I want it to be as resource and energy efficient as possible. I have already tried Ubuntu Server, Lubuntu and Ubuntu MATE on it, and they all use around 200mb RAM when idle (while I expected the server to use less).

Also, I am kind of new to Linux, so I would like to have the distribution, with which I will have no problem finding help how to use. So here is what I want:

1) Which one would be best for performance, the Server version, or something with Desktop environment? I want the server to be able to handle hundreds of users to the website.

2) Does the RAM memory usage when idle determines which distro works best on my system?

EDIT: Here is a comparison of Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu MATE and Lubuntu, freshly installed and updated on a Virtual Machine. enter image description here

Sartheris Stormhammer
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first if your top priority is energy efficiency (and not speed) i would take a single-board computer (like Raspberry Pi).

the Raspberry Pi is the most popular (but not the most powerful) SBC with maximum power usage around 4 Watts and it's recommended OS is Raspbian, a derivate of Debian (like Ubuntu also is).
and if you really need it, also a lightweight DE is preinstalled and with raspi-config also noobs can easily switch between booting into it or just the terminal.

that said i'm not sure if it can handle your requirements!

  • it depends on the services you want to run on it: nginx or apache, plain text or heavy server-sided scripts, etc...
  • and also the amount of users will be an important point: are there only about 100 people having access to your server and so just a hand full using it at the same time, or if some ten hundred users accessing your server at the same time i wish you good luck! :-/
  • and also the network connection respectively upload speed must not be ignored.

to make it easy:

  • if you don't know what you are doing i won't serve a machine to everybody in the www! - it will probably get hacked...
  • i would recommend you to chose a trusted hoster and run your services there (so it is also more reliable, more performant and you hardly have to worry about anything)!
  • and beside that you can start trial and error with your own machine inside your LAN or maybe VPN.
  • for that case i would take Debian or if you like the "enterprise-way" CentOS (for compatibility with RHEL). both without a DE as servers are usually run headless...
DJCrashdummy
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The server versions of Linux tend to take up less resources than the Desktop versions. So, the netbook should be able to handle any of those. As far as your second question, I would say only if you plan on your system typically being idle. That said, your 2 GB of RAM should be more than enough for what you're looking for (unless you end up demanding the server much more than it seems like you intend to).

Colonel Trogdor
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If you really want to be able to compare apples to apples, I would set up Wordpress to your specifications and compare performance there. The problem with comparing those three distributions' idle RAM performance as a basic install without Wordpress is that it's just testing how much it uses sitting there.

Most of the desktop distros' overhead is probably related to the operation of the GUI environment - probably very little that Wordpress relies on is installed by default. On the other hand, Ubuntu server's RAM usage overhead (depending on what choices you made when you installed it) may very well include a lot of things that Wordpress depends upon or utilizes.

Additionally, running a GUI on a machine intended to be a server merely consumes resources and adds potential vulnerabilities. Especially since you say you're new to this, and you're self-hosting a public website, I would keep it as secure as possible. Ubuntu Server (or another server-focused distro like Debian or CentOS) would probably be easier to secure.

drkokandy
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