Bedrock Linux Combines Benefits of Other Linux Distros

First time accepted submitter Paradigm_Complex writes "From the distro's front page: 'Bedrock Linux is a Linux distribution created with the aim of making most of the (often seemingly mutually-exclusive) benefits of various other Linux distributions available simultaneously and transparently. If one would like a rock-solid stable base (for example, from Debian or a RHEL clone) yet still have easy access to cutting-edge packages (from, say, Arch Linux), automate compiling packages with Gentoo's portage, and ensure that software aimed only for the ever popular Ubuntu will run smoothly — all at the same time, in the same distribution — Bedrock Linux will provide a means to achieve this.' The timing of this release is particularly nice for those who were excited to hear that Valve was bringing Steam to Linux, but were disappointed that it was targeting Ubuntu as Ubuntu was not their distro of choice. If it works on Ubuntu, it should work fine on Bedrock Linux, while still ensuring the majority of the system feel very, very similar to Fedora or Slackware or whatever you prefer."

Comments

Sounds great!

[skipkent]

I'm sure the devs will have a gay old time.

Minimal busybox LFS with chroots

[Anonymous Coward]

The tl;dr version is that this "distro" is just an installation manual for a linux-from-scratch style install of a kernel, busybox, and little else (think initrd-style minimal system) plus chroots under which you can install regular distros.

While a novel concept, this is clearly a niche idea. At best I could see it useful to the developer who wants to test his packages across multiple distros, but you can already do that with a standard "host" distro and chroots for "guest" distros. It also does nothing (at least yet) to deal with the fact that each "client" will want/expect its own daemons to be running, but lots of them will be system-exclusive (e.g. anything to do with devices or networking).

Re:Minimal busybox LFS with chroots

[Paradigm_Complex]

You've missed the way it integrates the various chroot'd clients together, which is really the whole point. See the second point here. That was literal barely anything more "apt-get install compiz && pacman -S xorg", throwing compiz in the .xinitrc and running "startx". As another example, it can have an RSS reader from one distro open a page in a browser from a completely different distro, transparently; it all feels like one single cohesive Linux distribution.

I do agree it is niche. It's not for everyone. However, I can't be the only one who has interest in the fact that I can have the vast majority of the system running Debian, nice and stable unchanging, yet still grab something from Arch with nothing more than a single pacman command if I feel like playing with something new.

Other than Ubuntu/Upstart's expectation to have its specific init running (which isn't technically a daemon, I don't think), I've yet to run into issues with conflicting distro-specific daemons. However, until very recently I'm the only one whose actually run it, and I'm sure people will find issues I've not yet thought up. That's why it's still in alpha.

Re:Sloppiness

[Paradigm_Complex]

I apologize, I literally just learned HTML/CSS within the last week to create the website. I've had other people offer to create a website for me who actually know what they're doing with respect to website creation - once they're done I'll gladly switch it away from what I'm sure is a poor example of a proper website.

What I am knowledgeable about is the content discussed within the website. Don't judge the book by its cover here, as I'm reasonably confident there is something unique in there.