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Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

wiki.alpinelinux.org

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Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#31

Post by ghotli »

jupp0r wrote: post #26

I use it mostly as a build image in order to produce completely static binaries which isn't possible with most other distros because the glibc maintainers at some point in the distant past decided to impose their opinion on the matter upon you by making it impossible to statically link against glibc.

I've done the same alpine trick for static binaries but may I introduce you to musl-cross-make?

https://github.com/richfelker/musl-cross-make

Just burned out static toolchains that make me static binaries for all architectures gcc supports. Much like musl.cc but they suggest building your own and I do.

I use these toolchains on debian (/ anywhere a non-ancient linux kernel runs) to make static binaries, you can too!

Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#32

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

bobobob420 wrote: post #18

I saw a thread the other day on docker command pull alpine:latest is not good. Im pretty sure like every enterprise docker container is running this command. Anyone see anyone change this or bring this up at work?

What do you mean, "docker command pull alpine:latest is not good"? Was there a specific breakage?

Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#33

Post by zalebz »

Question, we're a long time Windows shop and just recently have been spinning up some linux containers (redis, rabbitmq). The decision fell to me and I went with Ubuntu. (I'm confident in our networking team that everything is firewalled well and not externally accessible so these are local LAN only.)

Should I instead be using Alpine? If someone is isn't distro aficionado and is utilizing "mainstream" docker images, what's the recommendation?

Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#34

Post by ghotli »

laurencerowe wrote: post #23

Doesn't Alpine have a noticeable performance penalty due to being based on musl libc instead of glibc? This seems to be born out in multiple people's micro benchmarks though how much of an issue it is for larger applications probably depends on the workload. https://superuser.com/questions/1219609/why-is-the-alpine-do... https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/benchmarking-debian-vs-alpine...

Anecdotal but I work on a performance oriented application and there is no such measured performance penalty from musl. For that particular use-case, like all benchmark caveats. Older musl, perhaps. Musl in other domains that bottleneck on something less performant, perhaps. Ymmv, measure twice cut once. :)

Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#35

Post by singlow »

zalebz wrote: post #33

Question, we're a long time Windows shop and just recently have been spinning up some linux containers (redis, rabbitmq). The decision fell to me and I went with Ubuntu. (I'm confident in our networking team that everything is firewalled well and not externally accessible so these are local LAN only.) Should I instead be using Alpine? If someone is isn't distro aficionado and is utilizing "mainstream" docker images,…

Ubuntu will likely be more compatible and easier to work with. The version you get in docker is very minimal as well, although maybe not quite as tiny as alpine.

Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#36

Post by Zhyl »

zalebz wrote: post #33

Question, we're a long time Windows shop and just recently have been spinning up some linux containers (redis, rabbitmq). The decision fell to me and I went with Ubuntu. (I'm confident in our networking team that everything is firewalled well and not externally accessible so these are local LAN only.) Should I instead be using Alpine? If someone is isn't distro aficionado and is utilizing "mainstream" docker images,…

My understanding of Alpine is that it is a minimal distro more suited to embedded systems and similar (happy to be corrected on that).

If you're using headless boxes for servers then Ubuntu or the house variety of the cloud platform of your choice is almost certainly best.

If you're looking for employee workstations I would go for something that looks and feels like Windows like Linux Mint or Kubuntu.

Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#37

Post by zalebz »

zalebz wrote: post #33

Question, we're a long time Windows shop and just recently have been spinning up some linux containers (redis, rabbitmq). The decision fell to me and I went with Ubuntu. (I'm confident in our networking team that everything is firewalled well and not externally accessible so these are local LAN only.) Should I instead be using Alpine? If someone is isn't distro aficionado and is utilizing "mainstream" docker images,…

"local LAN" = local Local ....

For shame, but I'm leaving my comment as is

Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#39

Post by Macha »

> Keep in mind that today due to the great popularity of Docker, Alpine Linux is one of the most deployed operating systems currently in use, because within every other operating system that uses docker, the docker image it uses is almost always Alpine Linux.

Isn't this a little overstated? I'm willing to accept it has a majority, especially once you get into custom images, but e.g. docker's library images are usually debian based, with a -slim or -alpine variant available, and of developer provided images on my network, debian + derived images have a majority, while Alpine's statement leads you to expect some kind of 90% share.

Re: Alpine Linux: Brilliant Linux Distro

#40

Post by phphphphp »

zalebz wrote: post #33

Question, we're a long time Windows shop and just recently have been spinning up some linux containers (redis, rabbitmq). The decision fell to me and I went with Ubuntu. (I'm confident in our networking team that everything is firewalled well and not externally accessible so these are local LAN only.) Should I instead be using Alpine? If someone is isn't distro aficionado and is utilizing "mainstream" docker images,…

The maturity of your organisation’s use of containers is quite important: Alpine is a fantastic platform to build very lightweight images, but there’s organisations where people want containers that have everything. I’d say, as your usage of and experience with containers grows, aim to build more lightweight images and eventually you’ll get to the point where Alpine is the logical next step, rather than being the right choice because people on HN love it.
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