Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder • Hacker News Board

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#501

Post by fooblat » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

oefrha wrote: post #476

commandertso wrote: post #409

One thing to consider, for the folks that assume everyone on CentOS is a parasite allergic to paying for software... CentOS is heavily used in the HPC academic organizations, in part because paying licensing fees for an OS on 2k+ nodes isn’t workable in academia.

When I was at Princeton, a lot of clusters ran Springdale Linux[1], which is a Princeton/IAS version of RHEL compiled from RHEL source. I wonder why they didn't simply choose CentOS, and if there's any institution outside Princeton using Springdale. Btw: it doesn't seem to have been ported to RHEL 8 (?). [1] http://springdale.math.ias.edu/

They don't have a dvd iso for Springdale 8 but there is a boot.iso download and a package repo[1]

1. https://springdale.math.ias.edu/data/puias/8/

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#502

Post by hackerbrother » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

reactor wrote: post #395

hackerbrother wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But.. why did they have to name it that?

Not sure if there are solid evidence established to prove this, but Cockroaches are believed to be capable of surviving large amount of radiations (like from nuclear bomb), hence they thought it would be apt for a geographically distributed DB. https://sciencenotes.org/can-cockroaches-survive-nuclear-bom...

I know, but cockroaches are also considered ugly in American culture (laugh emoji)

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#503

Post by goatinaboat » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

CoconutPilot wrote: post #296

Whats missing is an analysis of why CentOS failed. I think Rocky Linux needs to put out a plan how they will make themselves financially viable as we've had 3 high profile RHEL respins go down in the last 10 years. CentOS failed twice, it ran out of money in 2014 and was rescued back then by Redhat sponsership. Again in 2020. Another widely used RHEL respin was Scientific Linux which mothballed when RHEL 7 was releas…

Whats missing is an analysis of why CentOS failed.

It did not fail. It succeeded too well! It was impacting RH’s bottom line, so they killed it.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#504

Post by phatfish » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #492

Keverw wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me about how people don't even give CockroachDB a chance because of it's name. Every time it's mentioned on HN, people can't help but to bring up it's name.

I think it is bad. You just cannot go to your manager and PR and tell them we are using CockroachDB. If you have a manager who would understand this though, then your manager still cannot go to his manager with that name.

Maybe its a clever tactic to reduce usage at companies that are controlled by non-technical people that are more worried about the name than the technology. Probably has a notable effect on the number of demanding/misinformed issues that they have to deal with ;)

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#505

Post by type0 » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

curt15 wrote: post #339

effie wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wary of doing that, because in near future, Microsoft is likely to take over Canonical. You don't put all eggs into one basket. Always plan for escape, always have a plan B. Preferably one not relying on crystal-balling whims of a for-profit corporation. Rocky Linux, Alpine Linux, Debian, Gentoo, BSD, etc.

>Microsoft is likely to take over Canonical. This is not the first time I've seen this prediction. What is its basis?

there has been some collaboration between the two, however MS collaborates with other small companies and that speculation never arises. I wouldn't set a bet that they're uninterested in Canonical, but the desire to buy it has always been overstretched, it is much bigger chance that they buy some other specialized distro vendor instead (like Google buying Neverware). Ubuntu is too generic in that sense.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#506

Post by kasabali » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

jtl999 wrote: post #43

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The patch delta for security fixes must get larger over time as these packages age further and further away from top of tree. I always wonder how many major vulnerabilities are introduced into these super old distros due to backporting bugs.

Documented cases don't seem to be common, but what comes to mind is the Debian "weak keys" scandal (2008), and the VLC "libeml" vulnerability (2019)[1] [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/ch86o6/vlc_security...

Xweak keys" didn't have anything to do with backporting fixes to older versions. It was introduced into the version in sid at the time.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#507

Post by bionsystem » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:55 PM UTC

joana035 wrote: post #478

bigbubba wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understand, it's not just a matter of longer support, but also training. A lot of companies have/had mixed RHEL/CentOS environments, with RHEL on the machines they really want RH support for and CentOS on everything else to save money. Having a mixed RHEL/Debian environment would probably be a pain in the ass for all your sysadmins.

Not really, I have seen CentOS based infrastructure having more problems (xfs breaking docker, frankenkernel 3.10 in 2020?) whereas with Debian things just works and are not heavily patched to the point of breaking ABI.

I've seen issues with debian as well in production systems, from the packaging systems most notably. Both distros are mostly good with some flaws.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#508

Post by ghaff » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #379

ghaff wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>who want enterprise-style lifetimes but don't actually want support But lifetimes are support. Support isn't just, or even primarily, about making a phone call and saying "Help, it's broken." After all, there's nothing keeping someone from taking a snapshot of a codebase and running it unchanged for 10 years. Probably not a good idea if you're connected to the network, but certainly possible.

I was thinking more about _why_ people want that. If you're changing the system regularly, upgrading is valuable because you don't want to spend your time dealing with old software or backporting newer versions. Most of the scenarios where you do want that are long-term commercial operations where you need to deal with requirements for software which isn't provided by the distribution, and in those cases they likely…

>I was thinking more about _why_ people want that.

I think there are two primary reasons.

1.) A developer wants to develop/test against an x.y release that only changes minimally (major bug and security fixes) for an extended period of time.

2.) The point release model where you can decide when/if to install upgrades is just "how we've always done things" and a lot of people just aren't comfortable with changing that (even if they effectively already have with any software in public clouds or SaaS).

I largely agree with your other points.

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#509

Post by type0 » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #356

sjellis wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snap is an Ubuntu thing. It's basically a client for the Canonical app store.

Even on ubuntu, you don't have to use it. I don't.

That's the only sane way to use Ubuntu. Snap is abomination

Re: Rocky Linux: A CentOS replacement by the CentOS founder

#510

Post by addicted » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:08 PM UTC

geerlingguy wrote: post #377

wfuser wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the name and the logo is good. Don't listen to the people who just keep talking and not helping! Agreed. It's funny that people here are complaining "Rocky Linux" isn't a professional name and they won't be able to convince corporates clients to use it. Yet, there exists a billion dollar revenue company named "Red Hat" which clearly is a "professional" name.

Same here. Things that come to mind: Rocky, the champion boxer who can "go the distance" and never gives up... the Rocky Mountains, which are, well, rocky and strong... Rocky Road ice cream, which tastes good. A zillion times better than trying to explain what a "Suse", an "Ubuntu", or a "Manjaro" is, and that's before talking about the various types of hat-based distros.

Or whatever the F “Sent-Aus” was.