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An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

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Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#51

Post by KronisLV »

jiggawatts wrote: post #48

As a person who only occasionally needs Linux for specific purposes, something I‘d like is a well-supported mainstream distro for lightweight, high performance servers. Think NGINX, routers, local web proxies, that kind of thing. Something akin to BSD but Linux. Ideally something that supports a two-stage deployment where you compile for the exact target CPU and then the final thing has no extraneous components at al…

> I‘d like a well-supported mainstream distro for lightweight, high performance servers. Think NGINX, routers, local web proxies, that kind of thing.

This might be a shot in the dark, but wouldn't Alpine Linux be a good general purpose candidate for this: https://www.alpinelinux.org/about/

Many use it as a basis for container images, but it also runs pretty well as a regular Linux distro, albeit musl and busybox might present some compatibility challenges in some cases. Regardless, it seems to be pretty lightweight and widely supported, most software that you'd expect is also available and generally there are few surprises.

It does have a somewhat short release lifecycle, though: https://endoflife.date/alpine

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#52

Post by kccqzy »

JHonaker wrote: post #14
LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that I've always been too scared to ask so I'm just going to ask it now: Is there a distro designed exclusively for running docker (and perhaps other) containers that also contains a friendly web UI for people who have no idea how docker actually works? I'm familiar with Proxmox, but it doesn't natively support docker.

OpenSUSE MicroOS is basically built around the idea of an "immutable" (read disincentivized to change) core while the majority of user space runs in a Podman container. It was originally developed as an absolute minimal distro for running containers on servers, but the immutable desktop movement led them to develop a desktop user-facing variant. Other ideas that are very similar: Fedora SilverBlue (very similar, more…

If you install openSUSE these days during setup you have the option to set up the company as a "transactional server" with this immutable environment. I love that writing to /usr/bin fails with read-only file system. It's implemented as a read-only btrfs snapshot.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#53

Post by imachine1980_ »

kccqzy wrote: post #52
JHonaker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenSUSE MicroOS is basically built around the idea of an "immutable" (read disincentivized to change) core while the majority of user space runs in a Podman container. It was originally developed as an absolute minimal distro for running containers on servers, but the immutable desktop movement led them to develop a desktop user-facing variant. Other ideas that are very similar: Fedora SilverBlue (very similar, more…

If you install openSUSE these days during setup you have the option to set up the company as a "transactional server" with this immutable environment. I love that writing to /usr/bin fails with read-only file system. It's implemented as a read-only btrfs snapshot.

I'm sorry what these means?, can you explaine it again whit more details?

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#54

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that I've always been too scared to ask so I'm just going to ask it now: Is there a distro designed exclusively for running docker (and perhaps other) containers that also contains a friendly web UI for people who have no idea how docker actually works? I'm familiar with Proxmox, but it doesn't natively support docker.

Is this a desktop? Fedora Silverblue

Is this a server? CoreOS

Portainer or Cockpit for web UI

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#55

Post by fraudster »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that I've always been too scared to ask so I'm just going to ask it now: Is there a distro designed exclusively for running docker (and perhaps other) containers that also contains a friendly web UI for people who have no idea how docker actually works? I'm familiar with Proxmox, but it doesn't natively support docker.

Kind of a left-field pic, and def not exclusively for running docker, but TrueNAS Scale offers a nice abstraction for running docker containers, with the simple webui interface you're asking for. I believe it uses K8s under the hood, and it's coupled with NAS software, but this seems maybe the closest to what you're asking for that I've seen.

https://www.truenas.com/docs/scale/scaletutorials/apps/docke...

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#56

Post by qbasic_forever »

jiggawatts wrote: post #48

As a person who only occasionally needs Linux for specific purposes, something I‘d like is a well-supported mainstream distro for lightweight, high performance servers. Think NGINX, routers, local web proxies, that kind of thing. Something akin to BSD but Linux. Ideally something that supports a two-stage deployment where you compile for the exact target CPU and then the final thing has no extraneous components at al…

You say you need a distro which to me implies you want packages and a repository and updates, installation of packages on the fly, etc. But you also say you want to make a final image with nothing extra except your main apps, which makes me think you don't want a distro.

I'd think about what your goals are and optimize for that use, it's going to be hard to do both the things you mention at once since they are somewhat at odds with each other. IMHO start with Debian, with minimal packages it's very slim yet you have the full power of their packages when necessary.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#57

Post by revolvingocelot »

ThatMedicIsASpy wrote: post #54
LeoPanthera wrote: post #5

This is one of those things that I've always been too scared to ask so I'm just going to ask it now: Is there a distro designed exclusively for running docker (and perhaps other) containers that also contains a friendly web UI for people who have no idea how docker actually works? I'm familiar with Proxmox, but it doesn't natively support docker.

Is this a desktop? Fedora Silverblue Is this a server? CoreOS Portainer or Cockpit for web UI

>Fedora Silverblue

Or Fedora Kinoite! IMO KDE is probably a better fit for the root commenter's "I just want a UI" position.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#58

Post by grepLeigh »

eschneider wrote: post #3

Interesting article. For folks who need to put together their own distro, especially for embedded applications, Yocto and Buildroot both lower the barrier to rolling your own and getting exactly what you need to something quite reasonable.

Agree, I'm using Yocto to roll an embedded distribution (PrintNanny OS). Combined with swupdate, I now have extraordinarily reliable upgrades using an A/B partition scheme.

The result is way more maintainable than previous iterations of PrintNanny OS images, which used a combination of Ansible and Packer to bake a "golden" image based on Raspberry Pi OS.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#59

Post by mardifoufs »

mikepurvis wrote: post #47
mardifoufs wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proxmox with native docker support would've been a dream. I know, it's easy to add it on top (since it's basically a layer over debian), but you still wouldn't get the native GUI support and the proxmox features that come with it. I don't know why they are so keen on not adding docker, and only focusing on LXC. LXC is fine, but it's pretty clear that it is far from being as popular or commonly used as Docker.

VMware has a thing that's basically this also: https://vmware.github.io/vic-product/ But I've never quite understood the appeal. Is it about running untrusted containers with VM-level isolation? Or having a familiar GUI for managing and lifecycling them? Something else? Fundamentally, I worry that mixing VMs and containers is more likely to end up with the worst of both worlds rather than the best— basically you get…

Ah the GUI/container integration is more for homelabs/internal networks type of usage, and I agree that it makes little sense in production. Otherwise you are also right that containers should be managed in a very different way from VMs. Especially when the page you linked boasts about offering a similar experience to deploying VMs for sys admins, which might lead to unoptimal usage for both VMs and containers. (But it at least seems to offer docker container support, not the barely used LXCs. So at least it can be useful)
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