6 ms·

> The more I use linux (and I'v been for almost 15 years), the more strongly believe that using what the Linux distros provide as a development toolchain is an

by barumi 6y ago

> The more I use linux (and I'v been for almost 15 years), the more strongly believe that using what the Linux distros provide as a development toolchain is an antipattern. Your assertion makes no sense. Let me explain why. You've adopted a LTS release which was made public 2 years ago, was already a couple of years in the making, and is aimed at establishing a solid and reliable base system that can be targetted by the whole world with confidence. And knowing that, your idea is to bolt on custom tooling that's not installed anywhere or by no one by default and make it your own infrastructure? Unless you're planning on managing that part of the infrastructure for your customers to use, your race to catch up with the latest and greatest makes zero sense, and creates more problems than those you believe you're solving. And no, it's not an infrastructure problem. It's a software engineering problem that's yours in the making. If you seek stability and reliability then you target stable and reliable platforms, such as the stuff distributed by default by LTS releases such as Ubuntu 18.04. because that's what they are used for.

jcelerier 6y ago
> You've adopted a LTS release which was made public 2 years ago, was already a couple of years in the making, and is aimed at establishing a solid and reliable base system that can be targetted by the whole world with confidence. From my experience, 0.05% of the people who have an Ubuntu x.y chose it because of "stability promises" of the LTS release. They just want a quick linux install to run their shit on, or it was handed that way by the Uni department / company / whatever. Or just because it's the biggest name and you're sure to find help online. And then a lot of people don't upgrade - I work with my fair share of people running win 7 (even still have an XP person around), OS X < 10.10 and Ubuntu 14.04, just because they can't afford newer hardware required to make the experience of newer OSes not a laggy shitfest. > And knowing that, your idea is to bolt on custom tooling that's not installed anywhere or by no one by default and make it your own infrastructure? gcc is not part of infrastructure, just like Xcode.app or Visual Studio aren't part of Windows or macOS infrastructure.
- my123 6y ago
  gcc is part of the infrastructure, for the simple reason that you need the same compiler version to build Linux kernel modules.
  - jcelerier 6y ago
    > for the simple reason that you need the same compiler version to build Linux kernel modules. Which kernel modules wouldn't come as precompiled packages in Ubuntu ? (real question - as an Arch user for instance I haven't had the need for DKMS for years)
    - ddulaney 6y ago
      DisplayLink is something that comes to mind. For Arch (btw i use) it needs DKMS and comes out of the AUR[0]. For Ubuntu, it looks like you need some 3rd-party packages that will need to be compiled for modern kernels. [0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DisplayLink#USB_3.0_DL-6xxx,_DL-5xxx,_DL-41xx,_DL-3xxx_Devices https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DisplayLink#USB_3.0_DL-...
- bityard 6y ago
  > From my experience, 0.05% of the people who have an Ubuntu x.y chose it because of "stability promises" of the LTS release. Your experience and my experience differ greatly, then. I manage around a hundred virtual and bare-metal Ubuntu 18.04 LTS systems. Most of our docker containers (not included in the number above) are based on an Ubuntu 18.04 image because that's what we have standardized our infrastructure around. The LTS choice was an easy one to make. We are too busy focusing on delivering value to the business to spend much time constantly playing around with the underlying technology. We are not early adopters for much of anything (except hobby projects at home) because we need our technology to be an asset to the business rather than a liability. Depending on new and bleeding-edge software for production systems just creates unnecessary risk. We'll probably start thinking about upgrading to 20.04 in six months or so.
  - 6y ago
dingaling 6y ago
> and is aimed at establishing a solid and reliable base system Excellent, I have a solid base. Now I want to install the latest version of Gimp. Cannot. Why is that tied to the base versioning?
- barumi 6y ago
  Why do you believe you can't? Because, I mean, you can.

by barumi 6y ago

jcelerier 6y ago

> You've adopted a LTS release which was made public 2 years ago, was already a couple of years in the making, and is aimed at establishing a solid and reliable base system that can be targetted by the whole world with confidence. From my experience, 0.05% of the people who have an Ubuntu x.y chose it because of "stability promises" of the LTS release. They just want a quick linux install to run their shit on, or it was handed that way by the Uni department / company / whatever. Or just because it's the biggest name and you're sure to find help online. And then a lot of people don't upgrade - I work with my fair share of people running win 7 (even still have an XP person around), OS X < 10.10 and Ubuntu 14.04, just because they can't afford newer hardware required to make the experience of newer OSes not a laggy shitfest. > And knowing that, your idea is to bolt on custom tooling that's not installed anywhere or by no one by default and make it your own infrastructure? gcc is not part of infrastructure, just like Xcode.app or Visual Studio aren't part of Windows or macOS infrastructure.

my123 6y ago
gcc is part of the infrastructure, for the simple reason that you need the same compiler version to build Linux kernel modules.
- jcelerier 6y ago
  > for the simple reason that you need the same compiler version to build Linux kernel modules. Which kernel modules wouldn't come as precompiled packages in Ubuntu ? (real question - as an Arch user for instance I haven't had the need for DKMS for years)
  - ddulaney 6y ago
    DisplayLink is something that comes to mind. For Arch (btw i use) it needs DKMS and comes out of the AUR[0]. For Ubuntu, it looks like you need some 3rd-party packages that will need to be compiled for modern kernels. [0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DisplayLink#USB_3.0_DL-6xxx,_DL-5xxx,_DL-41xx,_DL-3xxx_Devices https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DisplayLink#USB_3.0_DL-...
bityard 6y ago
> From my experience, 0.05% of the people who have an Ubuntu x.y chose it because of "stability promises" of the LTS release. Your experience and my experience differ greatly, then. I manage around a hundred virtual and bare-metal Ubuntu 18.04 LTS systems. Most of our docker containers (not included in the number above) are based on an Ubuntu 18.04 image because that's what we have standardized our infrastructure around. The LTS choice was an easy one to make. We are too busy focusing on delivering value to the business to spend much time constantly playing around with the underlying technology. We are not early adopters for much of anything (except hobby projects at home) because we need our technology to be an asset to the business rather than a liability. Depending on new and bleeding-edge software for production systems just creates unnecessary risk. We'll probably start thinking about upgrading to 20.04 in six months or so.
- 6y ago

dingaling 6y ago

> and is aimed at establishing a solid and reliable base system Excellent, I have a solid base. Now I want to install the latest version of Gimp. Cannot. Why is that tied to the base versioning?

barumi 6y ago
Why do you believe you can't? Because, I mean, you can.