Shrinking NixOS Ram footprint and resource requirements to the bare minimum
0 comments · nix
- Comments12
–Rank now
#9Peak rank
3Days on list
4Score · 7d
Oct 30, 2026First seen
On Lobsters
nix
- Score
- 25
- Comments
- 12
- Submitted by
- msangi
- Tags
- nix
- Site
- lowendspirit.com
Story details from Lobsters ↗ · linked article on lowendspirit.com.
Trending history
Shrinking NixOS Ram footprint and resource requirements to the bare minimum was first seen on Lobsters · Hottest on Oct 30, 2026. Since then it has appeared in 54 checks on 3 different days. Its best position was #9 of 25, reached on Oct 30, 23:19 UTC. It dropped off the list after Nov 2, 03:51 UTC. The same link also trended on Hacker News, which raises its cross-platform score.
Rank history
Position on Lobsters · Hottest at every check (lower is better).
Last 14 days
Best rank per day (UTC).
9
9
24
Oct 26today
Metric history
Platform metric as reported by Lobsters.
Where it trended
| List | Best | Days | Checks | Last seen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lobsters · Hottest | #9 | 3 | 54 | |
| YHacker News · Front page Shrinking NixOS RAM footprint and resource requirements to the bare… | same link | |||
From the discussion
A few top-level comments from Lobsters, shortened. Read the full thread on Lobsters.
If you're low on resources I would also look into doing builds on a beefy machine and push only the built system to the VPS. One option is the standard `nixos-rebuild switch` on a powerful machine passing the `--target-host` parameter. I've done it successfully in the past. Another option is to go fully appliance…
It’s a pretty niche use case, but I wish there was a lighter version of NixOS for this sort of thing. Having a fully declarative OS you can rebuild trivially is so enticing, but, for me, it’s not worth having to quadruple my cheap hobby VPS RAM (from 128 -> 512 or more). smolBSD is close, but is more like a…
Rebuilding NixOS involves evaluating the whole system configuration at once in a lazy-evaluated language, which is probably part of the problem.
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Questions
Is Shrinking NixOS Ram footprint and resource requirements to the bare minimum trending on Lobsters right now?
Not at the moment. It was last on the list on Nov 2, 03:51 UTC, after 3 days of trending.
What is the highest rank Shrinking NixOS Ram footprint and resource requirements to the bare minimum reached?
#9 on Lobsters · Hottest, on Oct 30, 23:19 UTC. Trendoday checks this list every 30 minutes.
How long has Shrinking NixOS Ram footprint and resource requirements to the bare minimum been trending?
It was first seen on Oct 30, 2026 and has been on the list on 3 days (54 checks) since.