7 ms·
potential successor to Alpine for lightweight docker images?
by shrumm 7y ago
potential successor to Alpine for lightweight docker images?
- Quekid5 7y agoIs it, though? (That's a bit of a meme, sorry.) No, seriously. Why would I choose this over Alpine? Or, given the failure modes of Alpine as a container image, why would I even choose Alpine? Everything in this space is absolute shite.
- no_wizard 7y agoWhat’s the problem with alpine?
- techntoke 7y agoOne issue is that they do not keep an archive of packages, and often you'll end up finding it really difficult to downgrade or use a different version that once existed.
- smitty1e 7y agoAccording to Itamar Turner-Trauring on Podcast.__init__[1] the issue with Alpine (at least in a Python context) is that the use of musl[2] instead of glibc (and I paraphrase) is an increased technical risk where corner cases that may not be as thoroughly tested are in view. ITT counseled in favor of using containers based on ubuntu or centos. I haven't done huge amounts of container work, but my light outings with Alpine have been fine. Maybe load and internationalization expose more personality in musl, or these concerns pertain to issues that have been fixed. It's something to keep in mind when assessing risk. [1] https://www.pythonpodcast.com/docker-python-production-episode-222/ https://www.pythonpodcast.com/docker-python-production-episo... [2] https://www.musl-libc.org/ https://www.musl-libc.org/
- 0xcde4c3db 7y agoI think of it as being like the "dash as /bin/sh" thing in Debian-derived distros. Software that's carefully done "by the book" or intended to be highly portable is unlikely to have a problem. But a lot of things depend on bash/glibc without anyone particularly intending or realizing it, simply because their sheer market share means that such dependencies will "just work" for the vast majority of users.
- smitty1e 7y agoI think that's a fair assessment.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Quekid5 7y agoI had trouble installing basic packages like Sphinx (Py) due to some imaginary locking problem on the part of apk... and I couldn't find any info on how to make apk ignore the locks (or even just delete the locks, and then go on installing). This was in container-world, so... a bit bizarre. It's very possible that I did something wrong or bizarre, but... that's of no consequence. Ubuntu/Debian works.
- shrumm 7y agoOn closer inspection, it doesn't look like it's a viable alternative. My biggest gripe with Alpine is that it uses musl instead of glibc. Most python C based dependencies require glibc to build. Looks like Kiss uses musl too. Alpine's been fine though for other uses, Go and Node apps for instance.
- Fabricio20 7y agoAs an alpine alternative, may I suggest Distroless [1]? I had a lot of issues in the past with alpine due to lack of "community" and docs around some problems, as well as musl causing issues with all sorts of nodejs build tools (bower, yarn). [1]: https://github.com/GoogleContainerTools/distroless https://github.com/GoogleContainerTools/distroless
- shrumm 7y agowow, thanks! I'll try playing around with these images. The cc variant looks perfect for what I need.
- agumonkey 7y agoMaybe an arch sibling
- iguessthislldo 7y agoThat's what it sounds like to me. It's trying to out Arch Arch.
- agumonkey 7y agoHonestly I don't mind it. It might even give arch some ideas who knows. Hopefully not about logos :)