Craig Sanders <cas@taz.net.au> writes:
it's been a very long time since i tried to install debian on a system with only 256M...i'm not entirely sure it will work. it should *run* OK-is once it's installed but the installer may require more than 256M (the debian package list is *huge*)
Last time I tried it, IIRC with wheezy when it was testing, you can boot w/256M, but you can only install w/256M if the udebs are available on local media -- i.e. it doesn't need to dl them into memory first AND unpack them into memory.
IMO, though, if 256MB isn't enough then a tiny-distro is still not the right solution, apt-get and friends are far too useful to discard - you can get P3s and better with 512M or 1GB or more for free without looking too hard. they're disposable "rubbish" that most people/businesses don't want (but still make perfectly good routers/firewalls and even desktop systems)
FTR, openwrt and friends have opkg. AIUI it's a de facto standard in the embedded space. It's not apt/dpkg, but it's not hand-rolling either.