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Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

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Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#31

Post by moffkalast »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #29
yourstruly-br wrote: post #6

I highly discourage anyone to use Ubuntu Core as part of their solution. It is a secure environment, yes, but it is a nightmare to configure (snaps) and for everything, expect for the most basic stuff, you will need what is called a "brand store", which costs about $20k/year, regardless if you have 1 or 100 devices. (We could not even make one snap talk to another snap, checking another snap status etc). We had comme…

That is really ridiculous. I'm sure some companies out there will pay it without blinking, but how are the little people supposed to evaluate things, heck a former boss at a Fortune 500 I know for a fact will say no thank you, and move on. I would just use DEB packages and setup a package repository myself, what does snap bring that regular debian packaging does not?

> what does snap bring that regular debian packaging does not

Snap is like using a python virtualenv, while apt is like using global pip. We all know which one of these usually results in a broken installation.

Apt debs more often than not rely on some specific version of a third party package which becomes a headache when there's another package that needs a different version of it. Snap in theory solves that, making the deps local to the package you're installing.

If I had a dollar for every time I had apt bullshit me with "requires package, but it will not be installed" or something of the sort I'd probably have something over $20 which isn't that much but still infuriatingly high.

Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#32

Post by 2143 »

moffkalast wrote: post #31
giancarlostoro wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is really ridiculous. I'm sure some companies out there will pay it without blinking, but how are the little people supposed to evaluate things, heck a former boss at a Fortune 500 I know for a fact will say no thank you, and move on. I would just use DEB packages and setup a package repository myself, what does snap bring that regular debian packaging does not?

> what does snap bring that regular debian packaging does not Snap is like using a python virtualenv, while apt is like using global pip. We all know which one of these usually results in a broken installation. Apt debs more often than not rely on some specific version of a third party package which becomes a headache when there's another package that needs a different version of it. Snap in theory solves that, makin…

> We all know which one of these usually results in a broken installation.

And yet they're promoting snap.

Have they given us the ability to stop automatic updates?

Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#33

Post by traceroute66 »

yourstruly-br wrote: post #6

I highly discourage anyone to use Ubuntu Core as part of their solution. It is a secure environment, yes, but it is a nightmare to configure (snaps) and for everything, expect for the most basic stuff, you will need what is called a "brand store", which costs about $20k/year, regardless if you have 1 or 100 devices. (We could not even make one snap talk to another snap, checking another snap status etc). We had comme…

> I highly discourage anyone to use Ubuntu Core as part of their solution.

Yup.

The guys at Nitrokey did a nice write-up about this last year.[1]

(TL;DR in the end, they chose Debian instead)

[1] https://www.nitrokey.com/news/2021/nextbox-why-we-decided-an...

Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#34

Post by quartesixte »

moffkalast wrote: post #31
giancarlostoro wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is really ridiculous. I'm sure some companies out there will pay it without blinking, but how are the little people supposed to evaluate things, heck a former boss at a Fortune 500 I know for a fact will say no thank you, and move on. I would just use DEB packages and setup a package repository myself, what does snap bring that regular debian packaging does not?

> what does snap bring that regular debian packaging does not Snap is like using a python virtualenv, while apt is like using global pip. We all know which one of these usually results in a broken installation. Apt debs more often than not rely on some specific version of a third party package which becomes a headache when there's another package that needs a different version of it. Snap in theory solves that, makin…

>If I had a dollar for every time I had apt bullshit me with "requires package, but it will not be installed" or something of the sort I'd probably have something over $20 which isn't that much but still infuriatingly high.

Completely unrelated but the exactness of this turn of phrase here delighted me so much and without your permission I’d like to steal it for my own use in my daily conversations (without credit).

Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#35

Post by aulin »

yourstruly-br wrote: post #7

This blog also mentions why Ubuntu Core is a bad choice. https://www.nitrokey.com/news/2021/nextbox-why-we-decided-an...

I read that post and as an outsider and one that knows very little about ubuntu core, I seem to understand you need a brand store to access direct hardware functionality, is that so? so you need to pay to be able to use GPIOs, I2C and other hardware peripherals from your snaps? on an IoT OS?!

Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#36

Post by hda111 »

traceroute66 wrote: post #33
yourstruly-br wrote: post #6

I highly discourage anyone to use Ubuntu Core as part of their solution. It is a secure environment, yes, but it is a nightmare to configure (snaps) and for everything, expect for the most basic stuff, you will need what is called a "brand store", which costs about $20k/year, regardless if you have 1 or 100 devices. (We could not even make one snap talk to another snap, checking another snap status etc). We had comme…

> I highly discourage anyone to use Ubuntu Core as part of their solution. Yup. The guys at Nitrokey did a nice write-up about this last year.[1] (TL;DR in the end, they chose Debian instead) [1] https://www.nitrokey.com/news/2021/nextbox-why-we-decided-an...

You can’t really compare the two wrt IoT. For Debian you need an additional OTA update mechanism. Luckily rauc is in the Debian repos but you still need to setup everything yourself: A/B partitioning etc.

Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#37

Post by speedgoose »

derefr wrote: post #21

Annoyingly, along with this, the Ubuntu "Minimal" network installer is dead (no 22.04 release) — presumably to "encourage" people to move over to this.

Yes, I’m more encouraged to move back to Debian personally.

Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#39

Post by mr337 »

yourstruly-br wrote: post #6

I highly discourage anyone to use Ubuntu Core as part of their solution. It is a secure environment, yes, but it is a nightmare to configure (snaps) and for everything, expect for the most basic stuff, you will need what is called a "brand store", which costs about $20k/year, regardless if you have 1 or 100 devices. (We could not even make one snap talk to another snap, checking another snap status etc). We had comme…

We had the some problem evaluating it for our startup. We were planning on using it to deploy ROS in the field and leverage the benefits. I was quoted $20k/year to get started and I think that also included 10 or 20 devices in the field. Then additional costs for that.

There was so many hacks to get it working with ROS since we rely on hardware for robotics to communicate with sensors, actuators, and network. Basically broke the security model to get our application working. We didn't go with it and went Debian as well :D

Re: Ubuntu Core 22 is now available – optimised for IoT and embedded devices

#40

Post by josteink »

derefr wrote: post #21

Annoyingly, along with this, the Ubuntu "Minimal" network installer is dead (no 22.04 release) — presumably to "encourage" people to move over to this.

At this point all my from-scratch installs are usually Debian-based where they used to be Ubuntu-based.

Canonical seems to completely have lost touch with what the community wants, and with the non-free installer, I find Debian working equally well OOB as Ubuntu has done in the past.

The only machines I still keep on Ubuntu are the ones already running it where migrating them will be too much hassle.

For my latest laptop, out of curiosity, I also tried Arch. It seems to work fairly well, but I haven’t had enough experience with it yet to “dare” put it on servers.

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