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> The same will eventually be said of Docker. I’ve yet to hear a single benefit attributed to Docker that isn’t also true of other VMs, I bought a Raspberry P

by chime 7y ago

> The same will eventually be said of Docker. I’ve yet to hear a single benefit attributed to Docker that isn’t also true of other VMs, I bought a Raspberry Pi and using a few commands, installed pre-configured Docker ARM images for 8-9 different media applications that would've taken me days to setup and manage individually. I didn't have to worry about dependencies or compilations. It just worked.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
shatnersbassoon 7y ago
Exactly. "other VMs"? The whole point of Docker is that it's not a VM...
Sharlin 7y ago
The problem of installing prepackaged applications was solved decades before Docker was a thing.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  even considering puppet etc things weren't this simple, the base image depends on the provider so you'd get variants depending on the kernel and glibc version, especially with openvz based host now, on bare metal server and premium providers where you're able to specify the boot image that wouldn't have been a problem, but there are lot more people dealing with cheap housing giving you whatever image they baked last than people doing bare metal deployments and for the former docker is an order of magnitude easier to deploy
- IshKebab 7y ago
  Evidently not or Docker wouldn't exist. Yes, Docker is a shitty solution to just packaging applications, but it exists because Linux developers keep saying "apt exists. It's solved! What's the problem? Static linking? Why would you want that? Portable binaries? But apt is the only place you need to put your app so you don't need them!"
beagle3 7y ago
Properly packaged Debian/raspbian apps are still an “apt install” away. Your use case, which is common, tells me that packaging / distributing may need some love, not that there’s a fundamental difference. And the convenience does not come free - a random docker is almost as bad as a random executable.
- heavenlyblue 7y ago
  >> Properly packaged >> packaging / distributing may need some love I am yet to see a single project which is relatively new and is packaged on Debian (let alone Raspbian). And lets be honest - nobody is genuinely using Raspberry Pi to run an outdated media server.
  - beagle3 7y ago
    Debian unstable (and even testing) has many. Ubuntu PPAs do too. Raspbian might not, I don’t follow it.
- vetinari 7y ago
  Packaged and configured are two different things. The fun begins, when you need several applications, which each have different ideas about configuring services, that would be otherwise shared. Then, as a matter of convenience, you get packages, that either bundle everything preconfigured to their liking (i.e. gitlab omnibus) or packages, that configure shared services how they need it, and running them shared is not supported (i.e. freeipa, which will configure httpd as it needs and forget having anything else served on the same machine). Docker provides a way to isolate these, so you can still use the same resources you have to run applications, that would not cooperate with each other on a single machine, without having to run separate OS instances in separate VMs.
  - beagle3 7y ago
    I mostly Ubuntu these days, have been for 15 years, and I cannot recall a time installing a package like Freeipa disabled a website installed by other packages. Obviously YMMv and I might have just been lucky.
debiandev 7y ago
> installed pre-configured Docker ARM images for 8-9 different media applications ... It just worked. Often the applications are packaged by random people on the Internet and do not receive security updates. There's plenty of evidence showing how bad the problem is and there's no way around it. You need the security team of a distribution to backport security fixes into a stable distribution and a large user community test them. Only with this you can run apt-get upgrade without breaking things.
mprev 7y ago
Great but how does that help recoup the investment the article mentions? I’m making no comment on the specifics of the Docker or Hadoop ecosystems as I have no skin in either game but history is full of useful tech that didn’t make money.

by chime 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

shatnersbassoon 7y ago

Exactly. "other VMs"? The whole point of Docker is that it's not a VM...

Sharlin 7y ago

The problem of installing prepackaged applications was solved decades before Docker was a thing.

LoSboccacc 7y ago
even considering puppet etc things weren't this simple, the base image depends on the provider so you'd get variants depending on the kernel and glibc version, especially with openvz based host now, on bare metal server and premium providers where you're able to specify the boot image that wouldn't have been a problem, but there are lot more people dealing with cheap housing giving you whatever image they baked last than people doing bare metal deployments and for the former docker is an order of magnitude easier to deploy
IshKebab 7y ago
Evidently not or Docker wouldn't exist. Yes, Docker is a shitty solution to just packaging applications, but it exists because Linux developers keep saying "apt exists. It's solved! What's the problem? Static linking? Why would you want that? Portable binaries? But apt is the only place you need to put your app so you don't need them!"

beagle3 7y ago

Properly packaged Debian/raspbian apps are still an “apt install” away. Your use case, which is common, tells me that packaging / distributing may need some love, not that there’s a fundamental difference. And the convenience does not come free - a random docker is almost as bad as a random executable.

heavenlyblue 7y ago
>> Properly packaged >> packaging / distributing may need some love I am yet to see a single project which is relatively new and is packaged on Debian (let alone Raspbian). And lets be honest - nobody is genuinely using Raspberry Pi to run an outdated media server.
- beagle3 7y ago
  Debian unstable (and even testing) has many. Ubuntu PPAs do too. Raspbian might not, I don’t follow it.
vetinari 7y ago
Packaged and configured are two different things. The fun begins, when you need several applications, which each have different ideas about configuring services, that would be otherwise shared. Then, as a matter of convenience, you get packages, that either bundle everything preconfigured to their liking (i.e. gitlab omnibus) or packages, that configure shared services how they need it, and running them shared is not supported (i.e. freeipa, which will configure httpd as it needs and forget having anything else served on the same machine). Docker provides a way to isolate these, so you can still use the same resources you have to run applications, that would not cooperate with each other on a single machine, without having to run separate OS instances in separate VMs.
- beagle3 7y ago
  I mostly Ubuntu these days, have been for 15 years, and I cannot recall a time installing a package like Freeipa disabled a website installed by other packages. Obviously YMMv and I might have just been lucky.

debiandev 7y ago

> installed pre-configured Docker ARM images for 8-9 different media applications ... It just worked. Often the applications are packaged by random people on the Internet and do not receive security updates. There's plenty of evidence showing how bad the problem is and there's no way around it. You need the security team of a distribution to backport security fixes into a stable distribution and a large user community test them. Only with this you can run apt-get upgrade without breaking things.

mprev 7y ago

Great but how does that help recoup the investment the article mentions? I’m making no comment on the specifics of the Docker or Hadoop ecosystems as I have no skin in either game but history is full of useful tech that didn’t make money.