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An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

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Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#61

Post by brucethemoose2 »

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.

Clear Linux pitches itself as the perfect Docker host: https://clearlinux.org/downloads/containers

Its almost certainly the most performant distro in this huge thread (unless your host is ARM).

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#62

Post by donatj »

Back in the very early aughts I used to carry around to friends houses a binder full of movies also containing a bootable CD with some linux distro that existed explicitly for playing media. I don't recall the name, it's likely long dead.

When whatever movie we wanted to watch failed to play on their computer, likely due to codec problems (it used to be a hassle before VLC) I'd pop the bootable Linux CD in, reboot and bam we were watching the movie. It was great.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#63

Post by seized »

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

There is also Fedora IoT which contrary to the name is kinda like Silverblue server or really an easy CoreOS. Works very well for containers.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#65

Post by kccqzy »

imachine1980_ wrote: post #53
kccqzy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's already well-explained in the linked article:

> OpenSUSE MicroOS has a read-only root file system, using Btrfs. Transactional updates are handled by a SUSE-specific wrapper script around the package manager zypper, transactional-update. This creates a new Btrfs snapshot of the root file system and then performs an update of the system. If the installation was successful, the script marks the new snapshot as the default snapshot. On errors, the snapshot is discarded and the previous one remains as the default. A reboot activates the new snapshot.

My comment above was saying that you don't have to use MicroOS per se to get this. A regular openSUSE install supports the transactional server role that does the same thing as MicroOS.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#66

Post by iguessthislldo »

taylodl wrote: post #38
iguessthislldo wrote: post #36

This isn't container-related like the article, but I recently came upon a specialized Linux in the wild. I bought a compact flash card off Amazon for to use as a drive in a Tandy 1000. I went to partition it and to my surprise it had a few partitions. One was an ext2 one that resembled some sort of root directory. Looking through the files, it appeared it was for a distro called AST Linux that was originally designed…

I'd love to learn more about how you're using that Tandy 1000!

I'm honestly still trying to figure out what I want to do with it. I got the compact flash to use with a XT-CF-Lite v4. I'm still trying to figure out what DOS I'd like to use. I can get the OEM MSDOS 3.22 installed onto the drive, but that version's max partition size is 32MB, which isn't ideal when the compact flash is 4GB. FreeDOS supports that size and pre-386, but it was a pain to get it on there and is a bit overkill for a computer this old. Right now I'm considering a later MSDOS, but haven't decided on which one.

As far as software goes I'm waiting on finalizing the DOS before exploring games and development, but it was fun was to be able to run this port of Wolfenstein 3D:

https://github.com/jhhoward/WolfensteinCGA

Besides all that I'm thinking of maxing out the RAM (it's 640k now, but can take an additional 128k for video), and maybe adding a real time clock and network card. I do have another Tandy 1000 TX, so I could see how 80's networking worked. That is probably another can of worms though.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#67

Post by dicknuckle »

candiddevmike wrote: post #24
dicknuckle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RancherOS if you're looking to use something heavily tested but it's got a few weird features like most of the OS also being in containers. If you want something light to play with and get a vanilla docker experience, your best bet is likely Boot2Docker with Portainer.

The existing RancherOS is no longer being maintained, you probably shouldn't be using it anymore: https://rancher.com/docs/os/v1.x/en/support/ Rancher is working on a new version.

News to me! Apparently I haven't used it in quite some time.

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#68

Post by kccqzy »

carlsborg wrote: post #64

> since all of the read-only parts of openSUSE MicroOS have now been moved to /usr, the upcoming 4.2.0 release of transactional-update would also be able to apply new snapshots without rebooting Huge improvement, reboot to activate was a major downside.

But do you update the kernel without rebooting? Previously transactional-update can update the kernel and call dracut to make a new boot image. I suppose this still needs a reboot?

Re: An overview of single-purpose Linux distributions

#70

Post by 63 »

This title feels pretty inaccurate. It's not an overview of single-purpose Linux distributions, it's an overview of a few Linux distributions whose single purpose is to host containers. I got excited to read about weird Linux variants for obscure use cases but this was very vanilla and disappointing.
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