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."

Comments

min install

[bugs2squash]

I'm sure I've installed minimal gentoo and Debian systems that fit that description.

Re:min install

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re:min install

[phantomfive]

Ubuntu already divides the server from the Desktop. It is split in two, and he didn't need to open his mouth, just do a Google search and he would have found it.

Of course, the distro doesn't have the exact minimal install he needs, but no distro will because everyone has a different set of needed packages. Unless he builds it himself. If only there were a way to do that......I'm pretty sure Gentoo "emerge nginx" will do exactly what he's asking, too.

Also, who on earth is Paul Venezia? He calls himself someone "who builds and maintain large-scale Linux infrastructures." Can that possibly be true?

Re:min install

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, who on earth is Paul Venezia? He calls himself someone "who builds and maintain large-scale Linux infrastructures." Can that possibly be true?

He's a master at clickbait articles. It's an Info World article. Were you really expecting quality journalism?

Linux From Scratch

[blackt0wer]

http://www.linuxfromscratch.or... Everything you need, nothing you want.

I gotta say it

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux sucks. Windows isn't much better other than the support.

Computing is not where I thought it would be 25 years ago. Users have continually less power, not more.

Linux gives people power in the wrong places. Places people rather let the system do the work. And it's based on Unix and Unix frankly sucks.

Fuck. I wish Plan 9 or Lisp Machines or something else won other than this half-ass kludge.

Fuck it. I'm going to sell my house tomorrow and build a log cabin in Canadian woods before the winter arrives. Out of here, bitches.

What about BSD derivatives

[theshowmecanuck]

Not trolling... I don't use BSD really, but my understanding is that some of the BSD distros are more server focused. I don't mind being corrected but my understanding is this could be a legit alternative if the idea of splitting Linux is a no go. I don't know why BSD isn't seen or heard of more (I do know it is used and has a strong following, but doesn't seem as prevalent as Linux... Mac doesn't count here). For BSD adherents, maybe this is the break they are looking for?

Re:What about BSD derivatives

[devphaeton]

When it comes to the Big Three (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD) the complete system is precisely what this Venezia guy is describing. It is a working system with everything you'd need to run a legitimate server. Things like X, dev tools (excluding C compilers) etc are considered "3rd party add-ons". IME BSD systems are logical, intuitive, robust, light and fast. The other nice benefit is that everything is developed by the same team, and the documentation is superb.

Don't get me wrong, I love linux too. But the BSDs are sorely under-appreciated for what they are and can do.

That said, the base install of most of the original Linux distributions (or the base install plus a handful of packages) is also what sysadmins have been using for decades as a "server-oriented linux system".

Yes, just like that.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Yes, just like that.

[MightyMartian]

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.

Re: Good response to the Systemd fight...

[jythie]

This is tech. Any suggestions that there is not one right universal way to accomplish something is a personal insult to one`s preferred technology. After all, all smart people must come to the same correct solution.

Re:Good response to the Systemd fight...

[houstonbofh]

And the new systemd friendly ways of doing this are the only possible ways to do it. The ways we have been doing it all along could not possibly work.

Re:Sounds like Slackware to me.

[Orgasmatron]

Slackware indeed. You'll never know it has a GUI if you don't go looking for it, and architecture decisions are made based on Patrick's desire to keep it stable and sane.