A Brief Goodbye to CentOS • Hacker News Board

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#11

Post by starfallg » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

q3k wrote: post #4

chmod775 wrote: post #2

Call me old fashioned, but I ship both my private projects and those at work as debian packages. Debian packages are trivial to put into a container, and we tried that, but honestly it's not half as nice to work with. With containers you have to do a ton of extra steps to get functionality and debugging on a level a default debian system provides you. Additionally the tools to automate the installation and configurat…

How do you handle multiple versions of the same project/software/deployment on the same machine?

The simple answer is you can choose not to. In many ways, a VM is a better abstraction than a container due to the simplicity of virtualising the hardware interface, as opposed to creating another abstraction layer in the kernel dealing with process isolation, permissions and system controls.

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#12

Post by spijdar » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

Lendal wrote: post #9

I'm still relatively new to Linux. My question is why wouldn't Fedora Server be considered an alternative for the CentOS diaspora? It seems a better fit than Debian to me.

CentOS releases were supported for something like 8 years, while Fedora releases a new OS every ~6 months. It does support up to 2 older versions with updates, but that means potentially breaking major upgrades every 6-18 months, compared to once every 8 years.

Debian, OTOH, has a much longer release cycle, and more of a reputation for moving like molasses, which for better or worse mirrors CentOS a bit more closely.

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#13

Post by ben509 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

I wasn't clear what's changing that is so problematic, so to summarize this post[1] and various comments: CentOS Stream will track ahead of RHEL and thus will be more like a beta channel, losing the stability guarantees that CentOS users depended on.

[1]: https://blog.centos.org/2020/12/future-is-centos-stream/

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#14

Post by z3t4 » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

q3k wrote: post #4

chmod775 wrote: post #2

Call me old fashioned, but I ship both my private projects and those at work as debian packages. Debian packages are trivial to put into a container, and we tried that, but honestly it's not half as nice to work with. With containers you have to do a ton of extra steps to get functionality and debugging on a level a default debian system provides you. Additionally the tools to automate the installation and configurat…

How do you handle multiple versions of the same project/software/deployment on the same machine?

You can for example have many SQL databases on the same db server, or many web sites on a www server. So you solve it with configuration. If you need different kernels you have to use virtual servers anyway.

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#15

Post by q3k » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #8

q3k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you handle multiple versions of the same project/software/deployment on the same machine?

Isn't that a sign of technical debt? Not OP, but for development/testing: in a VM.

How is it technical debt? How else do you handle software rollout and rollback, or canarying? Do you have a VM for every single version of your software?

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#16

Post by q3k » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

starfallg wrote: post #11

q3k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you handle multiple versions of the same project/software/deployment on the same machine?

The simple answer is you can choose not to. In many ways, a VM is a better abstraction than a container due to the simplicity of virtualising the hardware interface, as opposed to creating another abstraction layer in the kernel dealing with process isolation, permissions and system controls.

On the other hand, VMs are wasteful resource-wise (and $$$-wise) and have a much larger operational overhead (suddenly for every deployment you have a different Linux installation, with its own root /, with its own configuration drift, which you have to manage separately via CM).

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#17

Post by alias_neo » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

Lendal wrote: post #9

I'm still relatively new to Linux. My question is why wouldn't Fedora Server be considered an alternative for the CentOS diaspora? It seems a better fit than Debian to me.

You want your server OS to be a mountain. It shouldn't move from under you as you build.

Fedora is a river, it never stops moving.

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#18

Post by cortesoft » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #8

q3k wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you handle multiple versions of the same project/software/deployment on the same machine?

Isn't that a sign of technical debt? Not OP, but for development/testing: in a VM.

What? Deploying new software is technical debt?

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#19

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

q3k wrote: post #4

chmod775 wrote: post #2

Call me old fashioned, but I ship both my private projects and those at work as debian packages. Debian packages are trivial to put into a container, and we tried that, but honestly it's not half as nice to work with. With containers you have to do a ton of extra steps to get functionality and debugging on a level a default debian system provides you. Additionally the tools to automate the installation and configurat…

How do you handle multiple versions of the same project/software/deployment on the same machine?

[deleted]

Re: A Brief Goodbye to CentOS

#20

Post by 3np » Wed, Dec 09, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

A common criticism of CentOS is that it's too stable. I don't see a mention anywhere of LTS channel of CentOS Stream, but wouldn't the next RHEL release effectively mean that current CentOS Stream channel becomes the LTS alternative, if RedHat commits to providing security backports?