**I want to create a buffer of 5km around the coastline, and save that as a separate shapefile.** 

I have a shapefile with almost 180,000 features. It's a line shapefile, representing the coastlines of the world (I got the data [here][1]). The shapefile is in CRS (EPSG:4326, WG84). 

So far I have been testing three approaches and all are either very slow or crash:

1) QGIS 2.14.2 Essen (with functioning GRASS functions)
I go to 'Vector' --> 'Geoprocessing Tools' --> 'Buffer(s)...'
I select the shapefile, 
For buffer distance I use: 0.05 (EPSG:4326 which is about 5.5km)
I check the 'Dissolve buffer results' options. 
This option doesn't seem to work, as QGIS crashes. I expect it has to do with a shortage of memory available. "Error: minidump written to (filepath)"
[![Screen shot of error message in QGIS[2]][2]

2) PgAdminIII 1.20.0 with the following state I try to create a new table and fill it with the buffer:

    CREATE TABLE public.lines_buffer AS SELECT ST_Buffer(geom,0.05) FROM public.lines

But the connection keeps on getting lost and thus breaking the operation. The furthest I got was 2 hours of query time, but that wasn't enough. 


3) Python 2.7 (shapely, fiona, descartes) My third attempt, is still in progress. I am trying to loop through the large shapefile and make a buffer. I'm not sure if my code is very efficient. I still have to "dissolve" after the buffer, which would also take a while. I plan on testing [shapely.ops.cascaded_union.][3] 
*EDIT: Even running the first 2 items takes very long...[Spyder IDE: 100% memory usage]*
My current loop just limits the first 3 items in the fiona.collection
Credits go to [Tom Macwright][4]

    def readshape(pathfolder, filename):
    filepath = os.path.join(pathfolder, filename)
    with collection(filepath) as Input:
        schema = Input.schema
        with collection('buffer_shape.shp', 'w', 'ESRI Shapefile', schema) as output:
            for i in range(0, 3):
                output.write({
                    'properties': {
                        'source': Input[i]['properties']['source']
                    },
                    'geometry': mapping(shape(Input[i]['geometry']).buffer(0.05))
                })

**Does anyone have any tips,  which software is the quickest and most stable option?** 


  [1]: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/shorelines/
  [2]: https://i.sstatic.net/svwND.jpg
  [3]: http://toblerity.org/shapely/manual.html#shapely.ops.cascaded_union
  [4]: http://www.macwright.org/2012/10/31/gis-with-python-shapely-fiona.html