Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#251

Post by nine_k » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 1:31 AM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #249

nine_k wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As somebody said, "Ubuntu is Debian-based the same way milk is grass-based".

What a smarmy thing for that somebody to have said! They use the same package manager and many of the Ubuntu devs were originally Debian devs.

The same package manager, but different enough packages, PPAs, etc, and a different release process.

Many different technical decisuons.

A very different project governance.

I'm not implying that these things are bad! But different enough they undeniably are.

The fact that I can install .deb packages on my box using a port of apt does not make it Debian. (Saying this as a dedicated Debian user since 1998 and until the switch to systemd.)

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#252

Post by duskwuff » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 1:31 AM UTC

bayindirh wrote: post #235

derefr wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Systemd does use "text files or symlinks for configuration" — those being the unit files in /lib/systemd and /etc/systemd. `systemctl enable` just makes a symlink from /lib/systemd into /etc/systemd, even. What would you point to to claim that it does otherwise? > text files for logging ...just sucks, on both embedded systems and production servers. (I.e. anywhere where you aren't debugging the machine on the machine…

> (Text files for logging) ...just sucks, on both embedded systems and production servers. Ehrm, no. Managing a sizeable fleet, with a central logging server for 1.5 decades, and we never had the problems you mentioned: > and so fills up your disk the first time it goes haywire. This is a bug of the program or configuration mistake or your monitoring is not working as intended. Funnily, we're seeing more disk pressur…

> Funnily, we're seeing more disk pressure from systemd journals.

So configure journald correctly? It has multiple options to control disk usage from logs -- `man journald.conf` and search for "MaxUse" for the relevant options.

> Just remembered: syslog daemons have rate-suppression mechanisms

So does journald. Relevant options are RateLimitIntervalSec and RateLimitBurst, and individual services can set their own limits as well.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#253

Post by spicyusername » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 1:45 AM UTC

Debian or RHEL for the server

Fedora for the desktop.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#254

Post by CelticBard » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 1:49 AM UTC

Arch Linux

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#255

Post by SuperSandro2000 » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 2:00 AM UTC

NixOS.

Not going back to imperative, none atomic updates aka I don't know what is configured on this machine or it just broke completely apart in the middle of the update and I need to clean up the mess right now.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#256

Post by SuperSandro2000 » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 2:01 AM UTC

gaganyaan wrote: post #137

I'm liking NixOS thus far. I've got it installed on my personal laptop. It's got some rough edges, but the benefits for me outweigh the downsides. I really like affordances like "nix-shell -p foo" to just run a shell with the "foo" command in it for one-off usages, instead of slowly accumulating installed apt packages that I forgot why I installed them. Similarly, having any custom configuration inside of "configurat…

Also you can easily remove packages without leaving now unused libraries behind.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#257

Post by SuperSandro2000 » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 2:07 AM UTC

I will never understand why people prefer debian's old packages. When I was using it I constantly was looking for features in newer versions because they actually are useful and made things things possible which where not easily before. Also installing anything out of tree is just a huge mess. Also when you are on testing things would fall apart almost every week.

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#258

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 2:14 AM UTC

jkepler wrote: post #236

txutxu wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately, we can still use Debian without systemd. I'm forced to use systemd in many places, but for example this laptop were I'm writing runs Debian without systemd. For me it's more to worry about: the influence that paid Ubuntu developers gain, year after year, inside Debian. Or the presence of ubuntu/canonical changes inside Debian packages. Regarding Ubuntu... I'm forced to use it at work, and we use to "debi…

Do you mean your laptop runs Devuan? I get that is nearly the same as Debian, but does it include the Debian social contract and community? Isn't it a separate project? https://www.debian.org/social_contract

If you're going that way Devuan is probably a better choice, but Debian did support running without systemd and still has sysvinit on a best-effort basis - https://wiki.debian.org/Init

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#259

Post by RobbieGM » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 2:14 AM UTC

gaganyaan wrote: post #137

I'm liking NixOS thus far. I've got it installed on my personal laptop. It's got some rough edges, but the benefits for me outweigh the downsides. I really like affordances like "nix-shell -p foo" to just run a shell with the "foo" command in it for one-off usages, instead of slowly accumulating installed apt packages that I forgot why I installed them. Similarly, having any custom configuration inside of "configurat…

For anyone interested in trying it know there is one major downside: most Linux binaries won't run on it because dynamically linked libraries work strangely on NixOS

Re: Ask HN: What Next After Ubuntu?

#260

Post by yjftsjthsd-h » Mon, Jan 30, 2023, 2:15 AM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #252

bayindirh wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Text files for logging) ...just sucks, on both embedded systems and production servers. Ehrm, no. Managing a sizeable fleet, with a central logging server for 1.5 decades, and we never had the problems you mentioned: > and so fills up your disk the first time it goes haywire. This is a bug of the program or configuration mistake or your monitoring is not working as intended. Funnily, we're seeing more disk pressur…

> Funnily, we're seeing more disk pressure from systemd journals. So configure journald correctly? It has multiple options to control disk usage from logs -- `man journald.conf` and search for "MaxUse" for the relevant options. > Just remembered: syslog daemons have rate-suppression mechanisms So does journald. Relevant options are RateLimitIntervalSec and RateLimitBurst, and individual services can set their own lim…

> So configure journald correctly? It has multiple options to control disk usage from logs -- `man journald.conf` and search for "MaxUse" for the relevant options.

So configure logrotate correctly; you hardly need journald for that.