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Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

bedrocklinux.org

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Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#51

Post by nialv7 »

arp242 wrote: post #47
freebuju wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, for both casual and advanced users, what *major* reasons are there for not using systemd? I've used systemd for years bug-free

It's fine when it works, but it's very hard to solve problems when they happen as it's so complex, and doing stuff outside of "the standard thing" can be difficult. I once had "systemctl restart unbound" reset my volume, consistently. How do you even start debugging something like that without a deep dive in systemd? This particular issue turned out to be a systemd bug, and that such a bug can exist in the first plac…

> I once had "systemctl restart unbound" reset my volume

That's fascinating, do you have more information on this particular bug?

Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#52

Post by znpy »

isitdopamine wrote: post #37
aszen wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another solid alternative is to install the nix package manager[0] and get access to thousands of packages. I have stopped installing stuff from apt and thankfully my system never breaks now. [0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs

I don't understand. I am sure the nix repository is quite large, as are Debian's and Fedora's ones. But how would nix help you mixing packages from different repositories, which is Bedrock Linux use case?

you (rightfully) don't understand because nix doesn't really fit in this discussion. actually, i'd say that nix is off-topic here.

nix is a package manager, that is going to install packages in its own way.

the discussion here is about bedrock linux, that answers a specific question: what if, for any reason, you need packages from two (or more?) specific, very different distros?

what if you need packages from BOTH ubuntu and rhel?

to that question, the answer is not "install nix".

which is really bad because i see the value in nix, it's a very nice system, but nix fanboys are getting really annoying with mentioning nix in any discussion where package management is even tangentially related. it kinda reminds me of that old video about mongodb being webscale.

Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#53

Post by bat_sy »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #21
ChuckMcM wrote: post #5

I think they should just say "An easy way to get Linux without systemd" and they would drive a lot of adoption. :-)

What are the top 3 alternative ways to do GNU/Linux without systemd?

You can also try Artix(arch minus systemd).

Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#54

Post by gtf21 »

peteretep wrote: post #18

I think those of us who don’t use Linux as a daily driver forget how completely incompatible different distros are. I made the mistake of trying to provision Amazon Linux desktops to users via Workspaces, and quickly realised I was going to need to build almost everything I wanted from source.

Even those of us who do use Linux as a daily driver can forget sometimes ;) I spend my days in Arch and occasionally interact with Debian-based servers but never have to consider the cross-compatibility (or otherwise) of other distros.

Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#55

Post by znpy »

throwaway54095 wrote: post #43
freebuju wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious, for both casual and advanced users, what *major* reasons are there for not using systemd? I've used systemd for years bug-free

My POV: SystemD is a software driven not really by technical, but political reasons by RedHat, to put the most important parts of a GNU/Linux system under their control. (Appart from the kernel of course). It is modular, but also dependant as a whole, so in the end, it spreads almost like an invasion, slowly leaving the admins not other option than accepting it. That's quite off from the Unix philosophy (do one thing…

> My POV: SystemD is a software driven not really by technical, but political reasons by RedHat, to put the most important parts of a GNU/Linux system under their control.

it's really a dumb POV to have, given that systemd is FOSS (licensed LGPLv2.1+) like most of the software that red hat produces.

as a sysadmin, systemd is a godsend. really, it brings uniformity and waaay better debuggability/predictability and tooling in system startup and configuration and troubleshooting.

and, again, systemd is foss so red hat hasn't really that much control over other distros (and each distro had its own internal discussion and choose freely to adopt it).

on another side, red hat took the time and spent the money to bring that improvement to the world. other people just complain under the shield of a throwaway hn account.

Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#56

Post by [deleted] »

znpy wrote: post #55
throwaway54095 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My POV: SystemD is a software driven not really by technical, but political reasons by RedHat, to put the most important parts of a GNU/Linux system under their control. (Appart from the kernel of course). It is modular, but also dependant as a whole, so in the end, it spreads almost like an invasion, slowly leaving the admins not other option than accepting it. That's quite off from the Unix philosophy (do one thing…

> My POV: SystemD is a software driven not really by technical, but political reasons by RedHat, to put the most important parts of a GNU/Linux system under their control. it's really a dumb POV to have, given that systemd is FOSS (licensed LGPLv2.1+) like most of the software that red hat produces. as a sysadmin, systemd is a godsend. really, it brings uniformity and waaay better debuggability/predictability and too…

[deleted]

Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#57

Post by [deleted] »

znpy wrote: post #55
throwaway54095 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My POV: SystemD is a software driven not really by technical, but political reasons by RedHat, to put the most important parts of a GNU/Linux system under their control. (Appart from the kernel of course). It is modular, but also dependant as a whole, so in the end, it spreads almost like an invasion, slowly leaving the admins not other option than accepting it. That's quite off from the Unix philosophy (do one thing…

> My POV: SystemD is a software driven not really by technical, but political reasons by RedHat, to put the most important parts of a GNU/Linux system under their control. it's really a dumb POV to have, given that systemd is FOSS (licensed LGPLv2.1+) like most of the software that red hat produces. as a sysadmin, systemd is a godsend. really, it brings uniformity and waaay better debuggability/predictability and too…

[deleted]

Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#58

Post by necrotic_comp »

znpy wrote: post #55
throwaway54095 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My POV: SystemD is a software driven not really by technical, but political reasons by RedHat, to put the most important parts of a GNU/Linux system under their control. (Appart from the kernel of course). It is modular, but also dependant as a whole, so in the end, it spreads almost like an invasion, slowly leaving the admins not other option than accepting it. That's quite off from the Unix philosophy (do one thing…

> My POV: SystemD is a software driven not really by technical, but political reasons by RedHat, to put the most important parts of a GNU/Linux system under their control. it's really a dumb POV to have, given that systemd is FOSS (licensed LGPLv2.1+) like most of the software that red hat produces. as a sysadmin, systemd is a godsend. really, it brings uniformity and waaay better debuggability/predictability and too…

I think people's beef with it is that it's hard to understand when things go wrong, Lennart's projects don't leave the best initial impression, and it's had significant scope creep since it was initially introduced.

Re: Bedrock Linux – a meta Linux distribution

#60

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

aszen wrote: post #34
theamk wrote: post #19

Reminder about alternatives: For the less extreme case, when you want mostly one distro, but also a few packages from another one, there is “alien” [0] which converts between different package formats. It sometimes needs help with system integration or dependencies, but occasionally “just works” For a more extreme case, there is a schroot (or a docker container) with /home, audio and X mapped in. Works surprisingly w…

Another solid alternative is to install the nix package manager[0] and get access to thousands of packages. I have stopped installing stuff from apt and thankfully my system never breaks now. [0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs

have been running debian sid on all my dev machines since ~7 years and not once had an issue. sure sometimes you need to diff a config file during a dist-upgrade but nothing every broke. ymmv. all my WM/DE sway/i3 gui stuff is self-compiled and so I get to see issues, dependencies and problems at compile time on my machine which I report upstream. It forces me in some rare cases dig until I understand and solve the problem. On the upside I know my tools really well down to every log entry that should or should not be there. Solving things becomes muscle memory (works better with a minimalist approach similar to the suckless philosophy). There is also a performance benefit of getting to use better CFLAGS such as `-mtune=native -march=native` or other hardening not available with packages. Once a day there is a cronjob polling git status for changes of relevant packages so I won't run out of date critically unpatched code. (oh and the great thing is by doing this often you also can follow the patches/diffs and quickly understand what is happening)

being lazy I've never considered the NixOS packing. it's a steep learning curve and also "old dog, new tricks". I'm sure it's awesome to use professionally but unless I see a commercial reason to use and apply it on the job, I won't bother (not because of lazy but because of many other competing things I want to do).

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