According to Debian 12 Install - AllStarLink Manual, a minimum of 8G of storage is required (“for OS + software”). I was going to deploy ASL3 on an old thin-client that has 4G of storage but I abandoned that idea when I saw the 8G requirement. Instead, I deployed ASL3 a different machine with more storage but found that my final install (Debian 12.7 with no desktop, ASL3, and Allmon3) consumed only 2G of storage. Why the requirement for 8G? (I just checked on an ASL3 box that has been running for a couple of months and its log and spool directories are under 1G so I’m guessing logging/spooling isn’t the reason).
8G is a generalized suggestion based on what people tend to use mixed systems for only one function of which may be AllStarLink. We may perhaps need to reword that to be a little clearer. But you are correct if you put a very minimal installation on disk it’s probably around 2G.
@N8EI thanks for the quick response!
Yes, I’d definitely suggest moving that from the Minimum Required to the Recommended column since it is not truly a minimum (and appears to be very far off from the actual minimum).
I am running several ASL3 VMs under Proxmox and allocated 2 gigs to them with no issues.
I have ASL3 running on Wyse Dell 3040’s with 8 gb emmc. However, it is not difficult to replace the 8 gb emmc with either a 64 or 128 gb emmc - just takes a hot air station - some wick and luck - the replacement emmc’s are $15 for the 128 gb emmc from Ali Express. de nu5d
That requirement likely stems from an old Raspberry Pi requirement. This was around in 2012 when I first used the Pi. Since there is only the microSD card for memory, the old Raspian OS had to read/write everything in the same space. To prevent deterioration and speed up processes, 8G became the standard. Will it work in smaller? Almost always. Just recall the old reasoning. It is not an absolute, but a recommendation.
Debian 12 here using 1.2 GB with ASL3.
Is that a stock install, or did you go back and strip a bunch of stuff? If stock, which exact version of Debian did you start with? I installed ONLY the basics (no desktop, etc.) from 12.7 and after installing ASL3 it consumed 1.9-2.0G.
It’s a stock install. I used the Network Install from Debian, then went from there. There is one node where the Network Install would not allow ASL3 to work properly, and I didn’t have the time or desire to troubleshoot, so I just used the full DVD install. That one is sitting at 4.3 GB, which is fine. Hard drives are cheap. All the rest are right around 1.2 GB.