18 ms·

Google ditches Ubuntu for Debian for internal engineering environment

172 points by adamnemecek 9y ago

Jeff_Brown 9y ago
Why?
- craftyguy 9y ago
  I can think of a few reasons why they (or anyone) would want to (or should) ditch ubuntu.
  - jackaroe78 9y ago
    I'd love to hear why, i'm just curious (dev who's only ever worked with centos at any kind of large scale)
    - takeda 9y ago
      I ditched Ubuntu in 2009, my reason was that it was buggy as hell. Usually a new release would fix few bugs and introduce new ones. Actually even recently I got email that a bug that I was watching was closed because it was too old. I mean I stopped carrying about Ubuntu almost 10 years ago.
      - noufalibrahim 9y ago
        I've found that dist-upgrade in Ubuntu introduces lots of breakages in Ubuntu. Was workaround was to reinstall keeping /home untouched. Once though, because of some UI/UX problems with the installer, I ended up formatting most of my /home before I aborted the install. That was the turning point for me. I went back to Debian and haven't moved away since.
        tyldum 9y ago
        Opposite of my experience. Been upgrading from LTS to LTS in production for many years. Non-upgradable OS like Windows and Suse Linux used to warrant new server hardware, but now the servers live far too long since there is no need to migrate.
        takeda 9y ago
        You said production so I'm assuming you are using server version. The vast majority of issues I was having were around desktop functionality: connecting a monitor to laptop, weird issues with UI, wifi, putting laptop to sleep. Actually one of last issues that infuriated me was them being ok with release that that crashed (froze) every time you started a laptop with a proximity to 802.11n network. Imagine trying to use your laptop to take notes in college and it froze few seconds after it booted up repeatedly. It took me a while to find out what the problem really was, then found the bug, realize that it was opened before the release, yet they still went with the release. To make things even more frustrating at the same time they refused to include OpenOffice 3, because it might not be stable enough. Talk about priorities. That was the time I started looking at alternatives, someone recommended OpenSuSE and I really liked it.
    - geezerjay 9y ago
      > I'd love to hear why, i'm just curious Although Ubuntu is a glorified copy of Debian, the components that Ubuntu changes tend to be brittle and unstable, and not adequately justified. If anyone wants an OS that helps them get stuff done, not mess with their work, and not even break between major upgrades, Debian is the way to go.
      - qznc 9y ago
        There was a time when Ubuntu had hugely better usability than Debian. Nowdays, Debian has mostly closed the gap. Thank you Canonical for the competition! Ubuntu/Canonical has lost its focus on the desktop. Desktops are boring now. Servers are more profitable and the entry to mobile has failed. Maybe another window has opened for some desktop innovation now? I would try to copy stuff from Android. Snap [0] is a promising way to deploy apps (in general, self-contained stuff you cannot depend on), even commercial/proprietary ones. The "app store" is terrible, though. Androids intents might be worthwhile to copy to decouple things. Androids activity lifecycle might be interesting. All of this requires a large-scale long-term reengineering of deeper layers, which is practically impossible for hobbyists. You will get hit a lot by people for being not-Unixy (see systemd) and only after years of slog you might be able to show a superior desktop. On the other hand, there is no money to be made with desktops, so why should a company approach such a risky project? [0] https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/snappy https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/snappy
        eeZah7Ux 9y ago
        > Thank you Canonical for the competition One of those examples where competition does not help at all. Many desktop users and contributors moved to Ubuntu and stopped contributing to Debian. A good number slowly moved back to Debian in the last 5 years.
        qznc 9y ago
        I believe it helped. Canonical invested in usability and raised the bar in general. Maybe for clarification, I'm thinking about stuff like the Papercuts initiative [0] in 2009. There is a similar situation with clang and gcc. Clang improved error messages and raised the bar. Gcc follows. It would probably not have improved on its own. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/06/canonical-to-boost-ubuntu-usability-by-tackling-papercuts/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/06/canon...
    - terminalcommand 9y ago
      Because ubuntu is based on Debian, almost all software/drivers packages for ubuntu work on debian. Using debian could maybe be compared to using vanilla JS instead of the shiny frameworks. The downside is that, debian is very conservative in their releases. Most packages that ship with the distro or are in the repositories are a bit behind. I guess that's why Google switched to Debian Testing. Btw even debian testing is comfortably stable. For people who want to try debian, I advise them to try Linux Mint Debian Edition. It is a vanilla debian shipping with a good looking DE. I installed it on my mother's laptop, she's been using it for more than 2 years. It is so stable that, one time her laptop broke and we pulled her old netbook from storage. I only took the hdd from the old laptop and inserted in the netbook. After installing the wifi driver the machine has been running flawlessly for more than a year now. I only do dist-update dist-upgrade from time to time, no further maintance was necessary.
    - fulafel 9y ago
      Ubuntu doesn't really have timely security updates for most of the packages they ship - those in "universe" etc are only randomly issued security patches, and you easily end up running unpatched stuff if you're not careful. With LTS releases you end up with having years of exposure to unpatched abitrary code execution bugs in security critical programs like firejail.
      - newman314 9y ago
        Just watching Ubuntu's response to Meltdown/Spectre has been painful. Spectre patched kernels were only just released into -proposed in the last day or so.
        tooltalk 9y ago
        doesn't seem like Ubuntu is all that behind. Ubuntu Meltdown: Jan 10 Spectre: Jan 11
        newman314 9y ago
        Spectre for 16.04 LTS only landed in -proposed on Jan 16th. It's still not available for general consumption.
  - voycey 9y ago
    Its indecision lately with regards to direction is probably a massive factor in this.
- Yetanfou 9y ago
  I'd say the ease with which Debian can be kept up-to-date as a rolling distribution (just follow testing or unstable (which isn't all that unstable, breakage is rare, for that you want experimental)) versus the convoluted process of moving from one Ubuntu release to the next. Where Debian can be kept in line with apt update; apt dist-upgrade (or full-upgrade which does the same) Ubuntu generally necessitates a re-install between releases.
  - mschuster91 9y ago
    > Ubuntu generally necessitates a re-install between releases. What? I have taken fossilized servers neglected for ten years and managed to successfully get them to 16.04 LTS - stuff is harder with Debian where e.g. mysql-server has disappeared in buster and replaced by MariaDB.
    - Yetanfou 9y ago
      It is possible - but officially discouraged - to do a dist-upgrade on Ubuntu. Sometimes it works, other times it 'almost' works. It is the latter problem which makes the official discouragement a reasonable precaution against breakage. Things like the mysql->mariadb migration in Debian might necessitate manual intervention but this is made clear from the onset.
      - NathanOsullivan 9y ago
        dist-upgrade is discouraged on Ubuntu for switching releases because there is a supported tool for the same purpose called "do-release-upgrade".
georgehaake 9y ago
Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate, i3, Xfce....? Perhaps no default?
- izacus 9y ago
  Cinnamon is the default supported option, but noone stops you from installing and using something else.
  - akerro 9y ago
    Looks like Cinammon haven't fix their issue with font rendering on many GPUs [1] I saw this bug on Ubuntu, Arch and Mint, on integrated Intel and two different AMDs GPUS [2] [1] https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+font+ https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&... [2] https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/5885 https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/5885
nerflad 9y ago
How many Googlers are using Linux for their everyday work? I assumed MacOS had as strong a hold on Google engineers as those anywhere else. I personally don't like using MacOS and would be thrilled to see more developers using open source systems.
- tomaha 9y ago
  Pretty much all software engineers have Linux on their main desktop computer. On their laptops it's mostly MacOS or ChromeOS.
  - watwut 9y ago
    That would not be my experience with software companies at all.
    - beisner 9y ago
      tomaha is talking about Google SWE, and is correct.
  - owaislone 9y ago
    I've been very interested in exploring Chrome OS as a development machine even if the core system runs on a desktop like you said. Is ChromeOS good enough for this already? What about develop tools like editors/IDEs, etc ?
    - msh 9y ago
      I think they are using ssh to reach the desktop, not running a local editor/ide.
      - walshemj 9y ago
        Rather inefficient I would have expected Google devs to run an IDE locally
crispytx 9y ago
That's cool as hell. I didn't know that Google runs Linux on the desktop. I always just assumed they used Macs.
- LeoPanthera 9y ago
  As far as I know, engineers can choose whatever they want.
  - gbugniot 9y ago
    Except Windows according to this article https://www.engadget.com/2010/05/31/google-to-employees-mac-or-linux-but-no-more-windows/ https://www.engadget.com/2010/05/31/google-to-employees-mac-...
    - LeoPanthera 9y ago
      From 2010. I wonder if that has changed.
      - chopin 9y ago
        With Windows 10? It made me switch away from Windows. I'd like to be the customer of an OS, not the product of its vendor.
        pjmlp 9y ago
        So you also don’t use neither Android nor iDevices.
        herogreen 9y ago
        You can still use an Android phone without the Google Play store if you use a custom rom such as LineageOS. I do not not have a Google account set on my Motorola E LTE.
        chopin 9y ago
evolighting 9y ago
It seems Google is far big enough to handle its own Linux distro; So it is very strange why they haven't done it since they even have created their own programing language.
- barsonme 9y ago
  Doesn't ChromeOS/ChromiumOS count?
  - steevdave 9y ago
    ChromeOS/ChromiumOS is built from Gentoo
    - barsonme 9y ago
      And isn't Ubuntu built on Debian? I guess I don't understand the distinctions, then.
    - richjdsmith 9y ago
      I wonder why they chose to build it off Gentoo versus Debian?
      - ionised 9y ago
        I was my understanding that Gentoo can be very lightweight, almost barebones compared to Debian. Seems like that night matter for ChromeOS.
- ma2rten 9y ago
  Google has it's own linux distro for it's servers.
  - tooltalk 9y ago
    that is not based on Debian?
contingencies 9y ago
Debian is also the default Google compute cloud instance type.
madmax108 9y ago
For some reason I always assumed Google had their own customised OS built on top of Debian instead of using Ubuntu OOTB. Debian offers a much more stable base which someone with the resources like Google has can easily customise for internal Engg usecases. Esp. in the last few years, Ubuntu has been having a rough time with the ups and downs, while Debain-land has been much calmer. End of the day, Ubuntu has to bring in new bells and whistles for the user community (which has backfired multiple times) as it's targeted as a daily general-use distro while Debian only has to guarantee stability. That's more or less the approach many Engg teams with much lesser Engg resources also take. Or are the Engg teams I've worked with just the minority?
- rusk 9y ago
  Hi, just to clarify, is "Engg" a shorthand for "Engineering"? I've never seen that form used before ... usually just "Eng" suffices ...
  - adityab 9y ago
    Rather common in Indian English from what I've seen.
    - rusk 9y ago
      Ah! That explains it thanks!
    - fb03 9y ago
      Question: Is it Engg because it is suppressing the middle characters of the word, like Eng...g ? That's really amusing from my perspective (having lived in an Asian country) because for us Westerns, most abbreviations come from using the first few characters of a word. I've seen the same pattern in Japanese: The word "OSU", which people usually conjure to salute each other in the morning or as they enter a dojo or fight, is actually an abbreviation of "Ohayou Gozaimasu", built in the same way as I imagine the Indian English's "Engg" was built: Taking only the first and the last parts of the term. O(hayou gozaima)SU.
lobo_tuerto 9y ago
I'm surprised they didn't consider something like Manjaro Linux. I used Ubuntu for 10 years and just recently switched to Manjaro with i3 and I'm not looking back, it is that good.
- mrweasel 9y ago
  If you have 10000+ machines, then you already have the infrastructure to building deb packages, and experience in running apt/dpkg based system, then the jump to Debian is much smaller than jumping to Manjaro/Arch. There's a huge difference in you switching your single desktop to a different distribution and switching an organisation the size of Google. Going with Debian brings then closer to "upstream", while leaving them with a base installation that isn't much different.
- b3lvedere 9y ago
  I've tried Manjaro long ago, but these days i really like Debian. Never liked Ubuntu that much. I think Debian is really fast, small and easy to setup, but that's totally my perspective. I'm just a novice and still have to google lots of stuff. :) What does Manjaro offer better than Debian if i may ask?
  - yulapshun 9y ago
    It's based on Arch so packages will always kept up to date. I don't know about Debian, but the system will break every time I try to run do-release-upgrade on Ubuntu. I've been using Manjaro for over a year now, never had any problem.
    - bildung 9y ago
      Pretty sure thats Ubuntu specific. I have machines here that run the "same" Debian installation for 10 years, doing dist-upgrades every few years and switching the disks (or the whole machine) underneath. Its one of the things I love Debian for.
    - mikedelfino 9y ago
      Debian Sid would be the equivalent to a rolling distro, as far as updated packages go. I find it pretty stable for desktop use.
mankash666 9y ago
I would think that a community supported Debian distro wouldn't match up to a canonical supported distribution. But it seems otherwise. The existence of Ubuntu has greatly benefited the Linux use base, with many patches contributed upstream to Debian and other related projects. Sad to see Google move away from them. Personally, Ubuntu is much more palatable to end users who aren't CS majors, especially with their willingness to ship/support closed source drivers, unlike Debian If they release gLinux to the outside world, we can all benefit from their constant vigilance, compared to just a community supported distro
- reacharavindh 9y ago
  Alternatively, I'd rather prefer for them to send changes upstream to Debian so that the entire community gets the benefit. I wouldn't want to run gLinux(based off of Debian, and meddled with by Google). I'd trust Mainline Debian with community vetted Patches from Google.
  - mankash666 9y ago
    And you already have that choice. What's missing is gLinux's availability to Google outsiders. I think gLinux vetted packages are likely to be more secure than the community edition. But, if Google decides to monetize it, they may track the fuck out of consumers like they do on Android. That's the only downside I see to gLinux
    - qznc 9y ago
      I remember that Goobuntu was usually quite outdated as it is based on the latest Ubuntu LTS plus trailing behind a little. Googlers themselves were not tempted to use it at home. That does not matter for Google development, because all their tooling and code comes out of a monorepo. Thus, I really wonder if gLinux wants to follow Debian testing closely? The might trail behind like the Ubuntu releases.
- jkaplowitz 9y ago
  It wouldn't have made sense to release Goobuntu publicly, since it was simply Ubuntu with central management and logging, integration with internal account systems, maybe some hacky bits specific to their environment, etc. They've said roughly this much in past public talks about Goobuntu. All of that makes sense for an internal corporate distro at a place like Google. It doesn't add meaningful value over Ubuntu for external users, except for state-sponsored attackers who want a more precise understanding of the vulnerabilities in Google's corporate workstations. It seems like gLinux would have the same tradeoffs, except that they're going to push more of the broadly useful changes upstream. (Disclosure: I worked at Google in the past, used Goobuntu, and am a Debian developer. But I was not on the Goobuntu team or involved with the decision to switch to a direct Debian base.)
hyperion2010 9y ago
Biased here, but at the scale of an organization like google why would they not use a tool like gentoo to customize and build binary packages for the whole organization? Does debian have symbols servers or something like that?
- rusk 9y ago
  I think you've answered your own question here. An organisation the scale of google could use a tool like Gentoo to customize and build their binary packages. They haven't, and this perhaps speaks to the suitability of Gentoo as an operating system for use en masse. Presumably individual engineers are still free to use Gentoo if appropriate but from a support and maintenance perspective the costs may not be feesible company wide.
  - hawski 9y ago
    They kinda use Gentoo. ChromeOS is built with Gentoo's portage. AFAIK Chromebooks are very commonly used at Google.
    - rusk 9y ago
      I guess this is more of an "embedded" usecase and more suitable to a statically compiled target. Not the same as "using it throughout the organisation" in the sense that their IT personnel need be concerned with.
    - jacksmith21006 9y ago
      Are the googlers using Pixelbooks most often?
- pacetherace 9y ago
  It also matters to use something that everyone is more or less comfortable with. The more customizations you do, the more overheads you have to deal with.
- wbkang 9y ago
  Well for whatever is worth, ChromeOS is a gentoo based system.
acd 9y ago
If Googlers make a nicer Debian desktop theme please contribute it back upstream. Also use Debian home/work switched from Ubuntu/centos/Windows. Using Debian is very stable and has most dev packages needed. Use Windows 10 in KVM for the occasional gaming fix. Going to try and run a desktop virtual machine in the cloud because I’m security paranoid.
bon0r 9y ago
The talk from the conference mentioned in the article can be found here -> https://debconf17.debconf.org/talks/44/ https://debconf17.debconf.org/talks/44/ and the relevant part starts around ~12:00 (direct link to video: https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2017/debconf17/lightning-talks.vp9.webm https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2017...)
pmlnr 9y ago
This is very good news. Debian is still the base for a lot of the most known distros and is a great distro on it's own. Contribution into Debian Testing will end up not just in Debian, but in Ubuntu, Mint, etc. Debian doesn't have a RedHat behind it, like CentOS or Fedora, so a Google adoptation will certainly come as a boost.
amelius 9y ago
How much did Google contribute to Ubuntu specifically? And will that now stop? (I guess so)
- Tom4hawk 9y ago
  I don't know how much they contributed to Ubuntu but if they also plan to contribute to Debian than it will eventually(matter of months) end up in Ubuntu.
luord 9y ago
I did this same switch years ago (probably because of unity) and never looked back. I love debian.

172 points by adamnemecek 9y ago

Jeff_Brown 9y ago

Why?

craftyguy 9y ago
I can think of a few reasons why they (or anyone) would want to (or should) ditch ubuntu.
- jackaroe78 9y ago
  I'd love to hear why, i'm just curious (dev who's only ever worked with centos at any kind of large scale)
  - takeda 9y ago
    I ditched Ubuntu in 2009, my reason was that it was buggy as hell. Usually a new release would fix few bugs and introduce new ones. Actually even recently I got email that a bug that I was watching was closed because it was too old. I mean I stopped carrying about Ubuntu almost 10 years ago.
    - noufalibrahim 9y ago
      I've found that dist-upgrade in Ubuntu introduces lots of breakages in Ubuntu. Was workaround was to reinstall keeping /home untouched. Once though, because of some UI/UX problems with the installer, I ended up formatting most of my /home before I aborted the install. That was the turning point for me. I went back to Debian and haven't moved away since.
      - tyldum 9y ago
        Opposite of my experience. Been upgrading from LTS to LTS in production for many years. Non-upgradable OS like Windows and Suse Linux used to warrant new server hardware, but now the servers live far too long since there is no need to migrate.
        takeda 9y ago
        You said production so I'm assuming you are using server version. The vast majority of issues I was having were around desktop functionality: connecting a monitor to laptop, weird issues with UI, wifi, putting laptop to sleep. Actually one of last issues that infuriated me was them being ok with release that that crashed (froze) every time you started a laptop with a proximity to 802.11n network. Imagine trying to use your laptop to take notes in college and it froze few seconds after it booted up repeatedly. It took me a while to find out what the problem really was, then found the bug, realize that it was opened before the release, yet they still went with the release. To make things even more frustrating at the same time they refused to include OpenOffice 3, because it might not be stable enough. Talk about priorities. That was the time I started looking at alternatives, someone recommended OpenSuSE and I really liked it.
  - geezerjay 9y ago
    > I'd love to hear why, i'm just curious Although Ubuntu is a glorified copy of Debian, the components that Ubuntu changes tend to be brittle and unstable, and not adequately justified. If anyone wants an OS that helps them get stuff done, not mess with their work, and not even break between major upgrades, Debian is the way to go.
    - qznc 9y ago
      There was a time when Ubuntu had hugely better usability than Debian. Nowdays, Debian has mostly closed the gap. Thank you Canonical for the competition! Ubuntu/Canonical has lost its focus on the desktop. Desktops are boring now. Servers are more profitable and the entry to mobile has failed. Maybe another window has opened for some desktop innovation now? I would try to copy stuff from Android. Snap [0] is a promising way to deploy apps (in general, self-contained stuff you cannot depend on), even commercial/proprietary ones. The "app store" is terrible, though. Androids intents might be worthwhile to copy to decouple things. Androids activity lifecycle might be interesting. All of this requires a large-scale long-term reengineering of deeper layers, which is practically impossible for hobbyists. You will get hit a lot by people for being not-Unixy (see systemd) and only after years of slog you might be able to show a superior desktop. On the other hand, there is no money to be made with desktops, so why should a company approach such a risky project? [0] https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/snappy https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/snappy
      - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
        > Thank you Canonical for the competition One of those examples where competition does not help at all. Many desktop users and contributors moved to Ubuntu and stopped contributing to Debian. A good number slowly moved back to Debian in the last 5 years.
        qznc 9y ago
        I believe it helped. Canonical invested in usability and raised the bar in general. Maybe for clarification, I'm thinking about stuff like the Papercuts initiative [0] in 2009. There is a similar situation with clang and gcc. Clang improved error messages and raised the bar. Gcc follows. It would probably not have improved on its own. [0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/06/canonical-to-boost-ubuntu-usability-by-tackling-papercuts/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/06/canon...
  - terminalcommand 9y ago
    Because ubuntu is based on Debian, almost all software/drivers packages for ubuntu work on debian. Using debian could maybe be compared to using vanilla JS instead of the shiny frameworks. The downside is that, debian is very conservative in their releases. Most packages that ship with the distro or are in the repositories are a bit behind. I guess that's why Google switched to Debian Testing. Btw even debian testing is comfortably stable. For people who want to try debian, I advise them to try Linux Mint Debian Edition. It is a vanilla debian shipping with a good looking DE. I installed it on my mother's laptop, she's been using it for more than 2 years. It is so stable that, one time her laptop broke and we pulled her old netbook from storage. I only took the hdd from the old laptop and inserted in the netbook. After installing the wifi driver the machine has been running flawlessly for more than a year now. I only do dist-update dist-upgrade from time to time, no further maintance was necessary.
  - fulafel 9y ago
    Ubuntu doesn't really have timely security updates for most of the packages they ship - those in "universe" etc are only randomly issued security patches, and you easily end up running unpatched stuff if you're not careful. With LTS releases you end up with having years of exposure to unpatched abitrary code execution bugs in security critical programs like firejail.
    - newman314 9y ago
      Just watching Ubuntu's response to Meltdown/Spectre has been painful. Spectre patched kernels were only just released into -proposed in the last day or so.
      - tooltalk 9y ago
        doesn't seem like Ubuntu is all that behind. Ubuntu Meltdown: Jan 10 Spectre: Jan 11
        newman314 9y ago
        Spectre for 16.04 LTS only landed in -proposed on Jan 16th. It's still not available for general consumption.
- voycey 9y ago
  Its indecision lately with regards to direction is probably a massive factor in this.
Yetanfou 9y ago
I'd say the ease with which Debian can be kept up-to-date as a rolling distribution (just follow testing or unstable (which isn't all that unstable, breakage is rare, for that you want experimental)) versus the convoluted process of moving from one Ubuntu release to the next. Where Debian can be kept in line with apt update; apt dist-upgrade (or full-upgrade which does the same) Ubuntu generally necessitates a re-install between releases.
- mschuster91 9y ago
  > Ubuntu generally necessitates a re-install between releases. What? I have taken fossilized servers neglected for ten years and managed to successfully get them to 16.04 LTS - stuff is harder with Debian where e.g. mysql-server has disappeared in buster and replaced by MariaDB.
  - Yetanfou 9y ago
    It is possible - but officially discouraged - to do a dist-upgrade on Ubuntu. Sometimes it works, other times it 'almost' works. It is the latter problem which makes the official discouragement a reasonable precaution against breakage. Things like the mysql->mariadb migration in Debian might necessitate manual intervention but this is made clear from the onset.
    - NathanOsullivan 9y ago
      dist-upgrade is discouraged on Ubuntu for switching releases because there is a supported tool for the same purpose called "do-release-upgrade".

georgehaake 9y ago

Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate, i3, Xfce....? Perhaps no default?

izacus 9y ago
Cinnamon is the default supported option, but noone stops you from installing and using something else.
- akerro 9y ago
  Looks like Cinammon haven't fix their issue with font rendering on many GPUs [1] I saw this bug on Ubuntu, Arch and Mint, on integrated Intel and two different AMDs GPUS [2] [1] https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+font+ https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&... [2] https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/5885 https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/5885

nerflad 9y ago

How many Googlers are using Linux for their everyday work? I assumed MacOS had as strong a hold on Google engineers as those anywhere else. I personally don't like using MacOS and would be thrilled to see more developers using open source systems.

tomaha 9y ago
Pretty much all software engineers have Linux on their main desktop computer. On their laptops it's mostly MacOS or ChromeOS.
- watwut 9y ago
  That would not be my experience with software companies at all.
  - beisner 9y ago
    tomaha is talking about Google SWE, and is correct.
- owaislone 9y ago
  I've been very interested in exploring Chrome OS as a development machine even if the core system runs on a desktop like you said. Is ChromeOS good enough for this already? What about develop tools like editors/IDEs, etc ?
  - msh 9y ago
    I think they are using ssh to reach the desktop, not running a local editor/ide.
    - walshemj 9y ago
      Rather inefficient I would have expected Google devs to run an IDE locally

crispytx 9y ago

That's cool as hell. I didn't know that Google runs Linux on the desktop. I always just assumed they used Macs.

LeoPanthera 9y ago
As far as I know, engineers can choose whatever they want.
- gbugniot 9y ago
  Except Windows according to this article https://www.engadget.com/2010/05/31/google-to-employees-mac-or-linux-but-no-more-windows/ https://www.engadget.com/2010/05/31/google-to-employees-mac-...
  - LeoPanthera 9y ago
    From 2010. I wonder if that has changed.
    - chopin 9y ago
      With Windows 10? It made me switch away from Windows. I'd like to be the customer of an OS, not the product of its vendor.
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        So you also don’t use neither Android nor iDevices.
        herogreen 9y ago
        You can still use an Android phone without the Google Play store if you use a custom rom such as LineageOS. I do not not have a Google account set on my Motorola E LTE.
        chopin 9y ago

evolighting 9y ago

It seems Google is far big enough to handle its own Linux distro; So it is very strange why they haven't done it since they even have created their own programing language.

barsonme 9y ago
Doesn't ChromeOS/ChromiumOS count?
- steevdave 9y ago
  ChromeOS/ChromiumOS is built from Gentoo
  - barsonme 9y ago
    And isn't Ubuntu built on Debian? I guess I don't understand the distinctions, then.
  - richjdsmith 9y ago
    I wonder why they chose to build it off Gentoo versus Debian?
    - ionised 9y ago
      I was my understanding that Gentoo can be very lightweight, almost barebones compared to Debian. Seems like that night matter for ChromeOS.
ma2rten 9y ago
Google has it's own linux distro for it's servers.
- tooltalk 9y ago
  that is not based on Debian?

contingencies 9y ago

Debian is also the default Google compute cloud instance type.

madmax108 9y ago

For some reason I always assumed Google had their own customised OS built on top of Debian instead of using Ubuntu OOTB. Debian offers a much more stable base which someone with the resources like Google has can easily customise for internal Engg usecases. Esp. in the last few years, Ubuntu has been having a rough time with the ups and downs, while Debain-land has been much calmer. End of the day, Ubuntu has to bring in new bells and whistles for the user community (which has backfired multiple times) as it's targeted as a daily general-use distro while Debian only has to guarantee stability. That's more or less the approach many Engg teams with much lesser Engg resources also take. Or are the Engg teams I've worked with just the minority?

rusk 9y ago
Hi, just to clarify, is "Engg" a shorthand for "Engineering"? I've never seen that form used before ... usually just "Eng" suffices ...
- adityab 9y ago
  Rather common in Indian English from what I've seen.
  - rusk 9y ago
    Ah! That explains it thanks!
  - fb03 9y ago
    Question: Is it Engg because it is suppressing the middle characters of the word, like Eng...g ? That's really amusing from my perspective (having lived in an Asian country) because for us Westerns, most abbreviations come from using the first few characters of a word. I've seen the same pattern in Japanese: The word "OSU", which people usually conjure to salute each other in the morning or as they enter a dojo or fight, is actually an abbreviation of "Ohayou Gozaimasu", built in the same way as I imagine the Indian English's "Engg" was built: Taking only the first and the last parts of the term. O(hayou gozaima)SU.

lobo_tuerto 9y ago

I'm surprised they didn't consider something like Manjaro Linux. I used Ubuntu for 10 years and just recently switched to Manjaro with i3 and I'm not looking back, it is that good.

mrweasel 9y ago
If you have 10000+ machines, then you already have the infrastructure to building deb packages, and experience in running apt/dpkg based system, then the jump to Debian is much smaller than jumping to Manjaro/Arch. There's a huge difference in you switching your single desktop to a different distribution and switching an organisation the size of Google. Going with Debian brings then closer to "upstream", while leaving them with a base installation that isn't much different.
b3lvedere 9y ago
I've tried Manjaro long ago, but these days i really like Debian. Never liked Ubuntu that much. I think Debian is really fast, small and easy to setup, but that's totally my perspective. I'm just a novice and still have to google lots of stuff. :) What does Manjaro offer better than Debian if i may ask?
- yulapshun 9y ago
  It's based on Arch so packages will always kept up to date. I don't know about Debian, but the system will break every time I try to run do-release-upgrade on Ubuntu. I've been using Manjaro for over a year now, never had any problem.
  - bildung 9y ago
    Pretty sure thats Ubuntu specific. I have machines here that run the "same" Debian installation for 10 years, doing dist-upgrades every few years and switching the disks (or the whole machine) underneath. Its one of the things I love Debian for.
  - mikedelfino 9y ago
    Debian Sid would be the equivalent to a rolling distro, as far as updated packages go. I find it pretty stable for desktop use.

mankash666 9y ago

I would think that a community supported Debian distro wouldn't match up to a canonical supported distribution. But it seems otherwise. The existence of Ubuntu has greatly benefited the Linux use base, with many patches contributed upstream to Debian and other related projects. Sad to see Google move away from them. Personally, Ubuntu is much more palatable to end users who aren't CS majors, especially with their willingness to ship/support closed source drivers, unlike Debian If they release gLinux to the outside world, we can all benefit from their constant vigilance, compared to just a community supported distro

reacharavindh 9y ago
Alternatively, I'd rather prefer for them to send changes upstream to Debian so that the entire community gets the benefit. I wouldn't want to run gLinux(based off of Debian, and meddled with by Google). I'd trust Mainline Debian with community vetted Patches from Google.
- mankash666 9y ago
  And you already have that choice. What's missing is gLinux's availability to Google outsiders. I think gLinux vetted packages are likely to be more secure than the community edition. But, if Google decides to monetize it, they may track the fuck out of consumers like they do on Android. That's the only downside I see to gLinux
  - qznc 9y ago
    I remember that Goobuntu was usually quite outdated as it is based on the latest Ubuntu LTS plus trailing behind a little. Googlers themselves were not tempted to use it at home. That does not matter for Google development, because all their tooling and code comes out of a monorepo. Thus, I really wonder if gLinux wants to follow Debian testing closely? The might trail behind like the Ubuntu releases.
jkaplowitz 9y ago
It wouldn't have made sense to release Goobuntu publicly, since it was simply Ubuntu with central management and logging, integration with internal account systems, maybe some hacky bits specific to their environment, etc. They've said roughly this much in past public talks about Goobuntu. All of that makes sense for an internal corporate distro at a place like Google. It doesn't add meaningful value over Ubuntu for external users, except for state-sponsored attackers who want a more precise understanding of the vulnerabilities in Google's corporate workstations. It seems like gLinux would have the same tradeoffs, except that they're going to push more of the broadly useful changes upstream. (Disclosure: I worked at Google in the past, used Goobuntu, and am a Debian developer. But I was not on the Goobuntu team or involved with the decision to switch to a direct Debian base.)

hyperion2010 9y ago

Biased here, but at the scale of an organization like google why would they not use a tool like gentoo to customize and build binary packages for the whole organization? Does debian have symbols servers or something like that?

rusk 9y ago
I think you've answered your own question here. An organisation the scale of google could use a tool like Gentoo to customize and build their binary packages. They haven't, and this perhaps speaks to the suitability of Gentoo as an operating system for use en masse. Presumably individual engineers are still free to use Gentoo if appropriate but from a support and maintenance perspective the costs may not be feesible company wide.
- hawski 9y ago
  They kinda use Gentoo. ChromeOS is built with Gentoo's portage. AFAIK Chromebooks are very commonly used at Google.
  - rusk 9y ago
    I guess this is more of an "embedded" usecase and more suitable to a statically compiled target. Not the same as "using it throughout the organisation" in the sense that their IT personnel need be concerned with.
  - jacksmith21006 9y ago
    Are the googlers using Pixelbooks most often?
pacetherace 9y ago
It also matters to use something that everyone is more or less comfortable with. The more customizations you do, the more overheads you have to deal with.
wbkang 9y ago
Well for whatever is worth, ChromeOS is a gentoo based system.

acd 9y ago

If Googlers make a nicer Debian desktop theme please contribute it back upstream. Also use Debian home/work switched from Ubuntu/centos/Windows. Using Debian is very stable and has most dev packages needed. Use Windows 10 in KVM for the occasional gaming fix. Going to try and run a desktop virtual machine in the cloud because I’m security paranoid.

bon0r 9y ago

The talk from the conference mentioned in the article can be found here -> https://debconf17.debconf.org/talks/44/ https://debconf17.debconf.org/talks/44/ and the relevant part starts around ~12:00 (direct link to video: https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2017/debconf17/lightning-talks.vp9.webm https://meetings-archive.debian.net/pub/debian-meetings/2017...)

pmlnr 9y ago

This is very good news. Debian is still the base for a lot of the most known distros and is a great distro on it's own. Contribution into Debian Testing will end up not just in Debian, but in Ubuntu, Mint, etc. Debian doesn't have a RedHat behind it, like CentOS or Fedora, so a Google adoptation will certainly come as a boost.

amelius 9y ago

How much did Google contribute to Ubuntu specifically? And will that now stop? (I guess so)

Tom4hawk 9y ago
I don't know how much they contributed to Ubuntu but if they also plan to contribute to Debian than it will eventually(matter of months) end up in Ubuntu.

luord 9y ago

I did this same switch years ago (probably because of unity) and never looked back. I love debian.