Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext • Hacker News Board

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#11

Post by jamesponddotco » Sun, May 12, 2024, 5:17 PM UTC

goombacloud wrote: post #7

jamesponddotco wrote: post #6

Slightly off-topic, but I wonder if there is something like Flatcar for LXC/LXD/Incus, my preferred container runtime. Would be much better than what I do right now, a locked down openSUSE host server.

If you mean using Incus on Flatcar, there is a PR for adding Incus as systemd-sysext extension. Flatcar inside Incus is a bit more difficult: for Flatcar being a container one can import https://stable.release.flatcar-linux.net/amd64-usr/current/f... and for it being a VM I don't know if the regular image works. A major hurdle is that one has to tweak the way VMs/containers are configured because normally Ubuntu's cl…

Incus on Flatcar is what I mean. This seems to be the PR you're talking about[1]. I'll keep an eye on it, thanks!

[1]: https://github.com/flatcar/scripts/pull/1655

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#12

Post by INTPenis » Sun, May 12, 2024, 6:37 PM UTC

This means we're finally getting a podman container OS.

https://github.com/flatcar/scripts/pull/1964

No I don't count Fedora CoreOS because it's a full immutable Linux distro. Flatcar is more slimmed down than CoreOS.

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#13

Post by ilovecaching » Sun, May 12, 2024, 6:46 PM UTC

Long term I think bootc containers will win the war. It has better backing and the weight of Podman behind it. Sysext will likely play a role, but I think flatcar is a losing horse.

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#14

Post by apitman » Sun, May 12, 2024, 9:03 PM UTC

What is the current state of the "container Linux" ecosystem? It seemed like it was all the rage for a few years then sort of lost steam. Seems like a really good idea as a only moderately heavy container user.

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#15

Post by 1oooqooq » Mon, May 13, 2024, 12:10 AM UTC

it still won't allow it to work as a qubes desktop

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#16

Post by robszumski » Mon, May 13, 2024, 1:29 PM UTC

apitman wrote: post #14

What is the current state of the "container Linux" ecosystem? It seemed like it was all the rage for a few years then sort of lost steam. Seems like a really good idea as a only moderately heavy container user.

Yes, it's a very good idea. I don't think it's lost steam, it's just buried underneath other layers of the stack.

Red Hat has Fedora CoreOS and RHEL CoreOS variants. Flatcar is going strong with the CoreOS-ethos intact. Talos Linux is also pretty popular.

The cloud providers have various minimal OSes for use underneath Kubernetes clusters but not used for standalone machines. I think Rancher OS is no more but the rest of Rancher is ongoing. VMware's various minimal OS efforts are no more.

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#17

Post by apitman » Mon, May 13, 2024, 2:28 PM UTC

robszumski wrote: post #16

apitman wrote: post #14

What is the current state of the "container Linux" ecosystem? It seemed like it was all the rage for a few years then sort of lost steam. Seems like a really good idea as a only moderately heavy container user.

Yes, it's a very good idea. I don't think it's lost steam, it's just buried underneath other layers of the stack. Red Hat has Fedora CoreOS and RHEL CoreOS variants. Flatcar is going strong with the CoreOS-ethos intact. Talos Linux is also pretty popular. The cloud providers have various minimal OSes for use underneath Kubernetes clusters but not used for standalone machines. I think Rancher OS is no more but the res…

Cool thanks for the information

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#18

Post by mdaniel » Mon, May 13, 2024, 2:51 PM UTC

robszumski wrote: post #16

apitman wrote: post #14

What is the current state of the "container Linux" ecosystem? It seemed like it was all the rage for a few years then sort of lost steam. Seems like a really good idea as a only moderately heavy container user.

Yes, it's a very good idea. I don't think it's lost steam, it's just buried underneath other layers of the stack. Red Hat has Fedora CoreOS and RHEL CoreOS variants. Flatcar is going strong with the CoreOS-ethos intact. Talos Linux is also pretty popular. The cloud providers have various minimal OSes for use underneath Kubernetes clusters but not used for standalone machines. I think Rancher OS is no more but the res…

Don't overlook Bottlerocket, which despite coming out of AWS is not (AFAIK) AWS-centric: https://github.com/bottlerocket-os/bottlerocket#readme

It's also super handy for writing out static Pod manifests to have replace the brain-damaging Ignition as a less stupid alternative to cloud-init

Re: Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext

#19

Post by robszumski » Mon, May 13, 2024, 3:00 PM UTC

mdaniel wrote: post #18

robszumski wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a very good idea. I don't think it's lost steam, it's just buried underneath other layers of the stack. Red Hat has Fedora CoreOS and RHEL CoreOS variants. Flatcar is going strong with the CoreOS-ethos intact. Talos Linux is also pretty popular. The cloud providers have various minimal OSes for use underneath Kubernetes clusters but not used for standalone machines. I think Rancher OS is no more but the res…

Don't overlook Bottlerocket, which despite coming out of AWS is not (AFAIK) AWS-centric: https://github.com/bottlerocket-os/bottlerocket#readme It's also super handy for writing out static Pod manifests to have replace the brain-damaging Ignition as a less stupid alternative to cloud-init

I love the standalone kubelet/static manifests pattern. It's ideal for edge type stuff and really simple systems. Here's a talk on my CNC control software running in my shop with just the kubelet, no control plane: https://developers.redhat.com/devnation/tech-talks/kubelet-n...