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Whonix-Host Low RAM Tests
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Description

Low or "low" if we can 4 GB "low" RAM.

If not a too personal privacy intrusive a question, how much host RAM can you test this with? 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB? Less than 4 GB RAM? Does booting into live mode work and are VMs still startable? Multiple VMs?

Might be different

  • Whonix-Host ISO Live vs
  • Whonix-Host installed with grub-live mode

?

https://forums.whonix.org/t/running-live-host-via-grub-live/8912/4

Details

Impact
Normal

Event Timeline

Patrick triaged this task as Normal priority.Mar 27 2020, 6:15 PM
Patrick created this task.

All tests done in KVM with 4 logical host CPUs, but I would expect to have similar (if not better) results on real hardware.

Version used: Whonix-Host-XFCE-15.0.1.2.2

Whonix-Host ISO, 2GB:

  • ISO Boots normally
  • gw boots normally
  • Impossible to launch ws with default 2GB (system freeze)
  • Setting 256M to gw and 1024M RAM to ws barely works/freezes

Conclusion: not suitable, unusable, very low performance.

Whonix-Host Installed in live mode, 2GB:

  • more usable than Whonix-Host ISO, with: gw 256M RAM and ws 1024M RAM (much faster, no freeze
  • performance is however still insufficient to do anything productive

Conclusion: not suitable, barely usable

Whonix-Host ISO, 4GB:

  • works OK with default settings (gw 512M RAM, ws 2048M RAM)

Conclusion: suitable

Whonix-Host Installed in live mode, 4GB
Same as above

I assume any configuration above that would be good enough.

My takeaway: Whonix-Host needs at least 4GB to be productive and enjoyable

Do we need more tests or can we close this ticket?

Patrick assigned this task to onion_knight2.

Excellent work. Thanks for researching this!

This is done. Just needs to be documented. Left notes here:

https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Whonix-Host
https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Dev/Whonix-Host