VPS backup size comparison -- Alpine binary only base vs *BSD-current with sources, self-compiled

Not_Oles

Alpine base, binary only, no sources, apk upgraded to edge: 662.81 MB

OpenBSD-current, self-compiled, with sources: 23.92 GB

FreeBSD-current, self compiled. with sources: 48.53 GB

NetBSD-current, self-compiled, with sources (including pkgsrc): 84.65 GB

Sizes reported by vmcontrol.linveo.com panel Backup page. The panel doesn't say the type of backup or the method of compression. Nevertheless, the relative size comparison seemed interesting.

Maybe I might try self-compiling Alpine. Has anyone here done that?

Thanks to @linveo for kindly donating the VPS used for NetBSD-current.

cmeerw

Just for comparison: the NetBSD images i create (for @linveo - others would be free to use those as well) use a 512 MB filesystem (and include base etc kern-GENERIC man modules rescue)

Not_Oles

Impossible to resist installing @cmeerw's NetBSD 11.0 RC4 image and making a backup just to see the size comparison with Alpine.

NetBSD 11.0_RC4 (GENERIC) #0: Tue May 12 04:23:51 UTC 2026

Welcome to NetBSD!

This is a release candidate for NetBSD.

Bug reports: https://www.NetBSD.org/support/send-pr.html
Donations to the NetBSD Foundation: https://www.NetBSD.org/donations/
We recommend that you create a non-root account and use su(1) for root access.
vps3# date; uptime
Mon Jun 15 05:23:16 UTC 2026
 5:23AM  up 4 mins, 1 user, load averages: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
vps3# 

Want to guess the backup size result before you see it?

NetBSD 434.94 MB
Alpine 662.81 MB

Thanks @cmeerw! Thanks @linveo!

rcy026

@Not_Oles said:
Alpine base, binary only, no sources, apk upgraded to edge: 662.81 MB

OpenBSD-current, self-compiled, with sources: 23.92 GB

FreeBSD-current, self compiled. with sources: 48.53 GB

NetBSD-current, self-compiled, with sources (including pkgsrc): 84.65 GB

Sizes reported by vmcontrol.linveo.com panel Backup page. The panel doesn't say the type of backup or the method of compression. Nevertheless, the relative size comparison seemed interesting.

Maybe I might try self-compiling Alpine. Has anyone here done that?

Thanks to @linveo for kindly donating the VPS used for NetBSD-current.

I'm guessing you are backing the entire vm? Could it be that whatever backup solution you are using cant read the BSD's filesystem so it reverts to a bit for bit backup strategy?
How big are the filesystems in each vm?

WSS

If you really want to build a tiny distribution, you should look at Damn Small Linux or Linux from Scratch. There are plenty of really tiny distributions you can build from source. Gentoo was one of the most common where people would bootstrap from a tiny image and build the world around that.

Not_Oles

@rcy026 said:

I'm guessing you are backing the entire vm?

Yes. For what it's worth, have tried restoring from backups multiple times at Linveo, and restores seem to work fine.

Could it be that whatever backup solution you are using cant read the BSD's filesystem so it reverts to a bit for bit backup strategy?

Don't have any idea of how the backup system is doing whatever it is doing. If I understand right, the control panel which Linveo is using is closed source. As far as I know, there isn't an easy way to export the backup files so that they could be directly investigated.

Comparing the backup size numbers shown in the control panel, and, now, below, comparing the VM size numbers shown in the control panel.

How big are the filesystems in each vm?

According to the control panel, the NetBSD-current VM is 100 GB. The OpenBSD VM and the @cmeerw image NetBSD VM are successive installs on the same 50 GB VM. The FreeBSD VM is a separate 50 GB VM.

rcy026

It looks like it's unable to read the filesystem so it simply backups the entire image bit by bit. It manages to do some compression, that's why the backup is a little bit smaller then the drive.