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Outlining Thin Linux
snydeq writes: Deep End's Paul Venezia follows up his call for splitting Linux distros in two by arguing that the new shape of the Linux server is thin, light, and fine-tuned to a single purpose. "Those of us who build and maintain large-scale Linux infrastructures would be happy to see a highly specific, highly stable mainstream distro that had no desktop package or dependency support whatsoever, so was not beholden to architectural changes made due to desktop package requirements. When you're rolling out a few hundred Linux VMs locally, in the cloud, or both, you won't manually log into them, much less need any type of graphical support. Frankly, you could lose the framebuffer too; it wouldn't matter unless you were running certain tests," Venezia writes. "It's only a matter of time before a Linux distribution that caters solely to these considerations becomes mainstream and is offered alongside more traditional distributions."
10 years ago, and I was a late-comer to the idea.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I see this as a response to the systemd war, and a viable one at that. A server does not need systemd... "It boots faster." Why bother when post takes 20 minutes? "It is tied into udev and network manager." Servers generally don't dhcp or hotplug... Since "the desktop" is going full tilt boogie in one direction and damn everyone who disagrees, it makes sense for the server folks to say "See ya!" And soon after someone posts about how to get lxde running on the server. :)
All the major Linux distributions already do this. Ubuntu has a minimal and a Server spin, Fedora has a new Server only spin, CentOS and RHEL have Server only spins, Debian has a minimal install, etc etc etc. The only way the guy's arguement makes even a little sense is if he thinks a server distribution is somehow made better by it not being possible to add a desktop interface to it. In other words, a distribution that ships only server packages and refuses to ever include anything that features a GUI.
Even then the arguement doesn't make any sense because it would assume a distribution loses polish in one area if it also allows packages in another area. There is no reason to believe this is true.
As have I. I have several Debian based routers and KVM servers that are out pure CLI. I have no idea what the writer is taking air. And neither does the writer, methinks.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I think the concern is not how stripped down of an install you can do, but how competing needs can result in desktop centric package decisions effecting server installs. This is probably related to systemd and the perception that it is a technology designed around the problems desktop users focus on at the expense of the issues server admins worry about.
As have I. I have several Debian based routers and KVM servers that are out pure CLI. I have no idea what the writer is taking air. And neither does the writer, methinks.
Paul Venezia is not worth reading, let alone discussing, IMHO.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Windows sysadmins amaze. For fifteen years I listened to them rattle on about how the GUI in Windows NT and its descendants was absolutely necessary, that it opened up servers to people who couldn't or wouldn't learn how to work from a CLI. So a few server distros put the head on their installs, worked like mad dogs to build GUI and web-based management systems like Webmin, and now suddenly all those Windows sysadmin flunkies are declaring Server 2012 is the bestest ever because you can run in headless with a CLI.
Listen you fucking asshole. *nix has been running CLI longer than most people posting here have been alive. It had mature toolsets and script libraries when Windows was a 16-bit cooperative multitasking layer on top of fucking MS-fucking-DOS. Generations of system administrators have lived and fucking died while Windows was forcing a clunky GUI toolset that you couldn't fucking script properly, and that you ended up having to go to REGEDIT and a bazillion GPO entries to fine tune.
Oh no, but Windows is so fucking cutting edge because in the last seven or eight years has developed a fucking shell that you can properly fucking script (even if the scripting language in question is a verbose and unbelievably slow executing piece of shit that is in almost every way the exact opposite of the elegance of *nix).
Well congrat-u-fuck-ulations Mr. "We paid a bazillion dollars to Redmond in licensing fees so we could have a scriptable CLI-based OS in our data center". I bet you even think you did an amazing thing.
Fucking Windows admins. Arrogance, stupidity and a total lack of knowledge of their own fucking operating systems incredibly dubious history as a Server OS.
Meanwhile, in the time it takes you to type out the name of a Powershell scriptlet and its arguments to import a CSV and puke it out as a SQL script, I can do write the code in awk or Perl in a bash wrapper. But hey, I must be stupid and you must the be the super fucking genius.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Aren't you just the negative stereotype? Sadly, this is what comes to mind when I hear "open source evangelist".
Who said anything about open source? Even the old direct Unix server variants all ran Bourne shell or c shell and their descendants. For chrissakes, a CLI-based server OS running a scriptable shell is decades old, predating Windows and FOSS by decades. This idea that Server 2012 is doing anything unique boggles the mind of anyone with even a basic understanding of operating system development and administration for the last half century. Maybe the Microsoft-funded diploma mills churn out admins who actually believe that Server 2012 is some revolutionary step, but for those of us who have been in the industry for oh, over seven or eight years, seeing somebody claim "we tossed out *nix and put in Server 2012 'cause it wuns with just a CLI" is liking seeing some fuckwit claim "I just invented the toothbrush!"
If you threw out *nix servers because you like the modern Windows toolset, then great! No prob. I have a network that runs a Server 2012 AD domain and a couple of Hyper-V servers, so it's not like I'm allergic to Windows. But fuck man, reading the parent's post (I dunno, maybe it's your post, I can understand why you would go AC to write such an incredible retarded post), with the underlying notion that Server 2012 is doing something revolutionary, and yeah, I start seeing red. Server 2012 is merely Microsoft, after twenty fucking years, getting the fucking hint.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Hmm, I got the impression that this guy only used Ubuntu desktop versions and never installed a real Linux server distro. He's been swatting flies with a sledge hammer, because he doesn't know any better.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
We used to run linux in the server room because it was lean and easy to admin. Windows was slow, mousy, and dependencies were hellish. Now we run Windows Server 2012 with no GUI, virtualized, and admin with powershell. We've ripped out tens of thousands of dollars of Red Hat; windows is cheaper.
If you don't mind me asking, what were you running on the servers which allowed an easy switch over? How did you go retraining a group of Linux admins to run Windows? Why not move off Redhat to another Linux platform?
The linked article alone is reason to hate systemd a GUI admin tool. It goes on about .desktop file format again GUI garbage. I've never seen a server do anything with automount, it's frankly a security issue all mounts should be explicit and done by a sysadmin with root privs. Maybe some cheesy backup script? Servers do not need nor should they have a GUI, a VGA port is overkill but windows needs it. VM's again never need a VGA port it's just a waste of ram a serial port works fine for either. The base logic is all things need to be done via CLI first and done well (far to many CLI's were an afterthought to a GUI and it shows). D-Bus again it's mostly a GUI thing, it need not be on a server. DHCP on a server?
I really do not care much about systemd their is nothing not using it in a professional linux right now (something with all the big third party app support) and frankly it's not bothered me enough but I do see anything useful in it either.
No sir I dont like it.
With respect, the above poster is replying to someone that appears to be asserting that. I suggest reading other posts higher up in the thread before wasting time writing such long replies that miss the point.
With respect, the GP of my post never asserted that. For reference this is the entire post:
We used to run linux in the server room because it was lean and easy to admin. Windows was slow, mousy, and dependencies were hellish.
Now we run Windows Server 2012 with no GUI, virtualized, and admin with powershell. We've ripped out tens of thousands of dollars of Red Hat; windows is cheaper.
Basically there aren't any linux server distros that are like Red Hat used to be before the Fedora fiasco. It seems like Red Hat today is doing a bad job of trying to be a GUI laptop distro running on server hardware. And they are letting mature stuff like PADL's LDAP modules go to seed while shipping raw, buggy stuff like SSSD, instead of maintaining the old stuff until the new is reliable enough for real world use.
There is no assertion of "all those Windows sysadmin flunkies are declaring Server 2012 is the bestest ever because you can run in headless with a CLI" in that quote, is there?
There is a certain bias towards Server 2012, but no claim of it being the best ever server OS. Much less a claim that others think it is the best ever server OS.
I suggest reading other posts higher up in the thread before writing short post that you cannot even get right.
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