5 ms·

Alpine is amazing. One of the best distros I've ever used by far. So good for desktop, so good for servers, so easy to use and install, amazing package manager.

by pknflx 5y ago

toastal 5y ago
I just wish there was better musl or static linking support in the Linux ecosystem for Alpine. A lot of one-off binaries in my experience were dynamically linked only for the latest Ubuntu's glibc.
- justaj 5y ago
  Isn't that what things like Flatpak or Nix / Guix are for though?
  - Out_of_Characte 5y ago
    Flatpak is great, you're able to install and run programs without configuration on most distributions. exept it also (obviously) installs all dependencies, configurations and settings while you usually only need glibc or some other variant to make a program run. I'd prefer running without flatpak because when something doesn't work you'll be wondering wether its flatpak, the system or the program that is missing something.
  - toastal 5y ago
    Nix it's very common to relink using patchelf, but I don't know if that makes sense linking from glibc to musl. Changing the compile environment from gcc to llvm and/or glibc to musl, means you will be building a LOT of things from scratch because upstream Hydra only builds and caches glibc. There's nothing "wrong" with glibc, but it does cause issues where a compiled binary says `-linux-x86_64` and then doesn't work with your system's glibc. I had a tool I wanted to use in an Alpine container, and switched to Debian or Ubuntu because I didn't want to deal with the incompatibility even if Alpine is smaller and faster. I got the author to put out a paragraph in the README about alternative, non-glibc not being supported by the prebuilt binary (ghc from Ubuntu isn't static).
beermonster 5y ago
Use it as my goto choice for containers and have never had an issue. Tiny footprint and minimal OS means I can minimise attack surface and package update frequency to boot. Really nice versatile distro.

Alpine is amazing. One of the best distros I've ever used by far. So good for desktop, so good for servers, so easy to use and install, amazing package manager.

by pknflx 5y ago

Alpine is amazing. One of the best distros I've ever used by far. So good for desktop, so good for servers, so easy to use and install, amazing package manager.

toastal 5y ago

I just wish there was better musl or static linking support in the Linux ecosystem for Alpine. A lot of one-off binaries in my experience were dynamically linked only for the latest Ubuntu's glibc.

justaj 5y ago
Isn't that what things like Flatpak or Nix / Guix are for though?
- Out_of_Characte 5y ago
  Flatpak is great, you're able to install and run programs without configuration on most distributions. exept it also (obviously) installs all dependencies, configurations and settings while you usually only need glibc or some other variant to make a program run. I'd prefer running without flatpak because when something doesn't work you'll be wondering wether its flatpak, the system or the program that is missing something.
- toastal 5y ago
  Nix it's very common to relink using patchelf, but I don't know if that makes sense linking from glibc to musl. Changing the compile environment from gcc to llvm and/or glibc to musl, means you will be building a LOT of things from scratch because upstream Hydra only builds and caches glibc. There's nothing "wrong" with glibc, but it does cause issues where a compiled binary says `-linux-x86_64` and then doesn't work with your system's glibc. I had a tool I wanted to use in an Alpine container, and switched to Debian or Ubuntu because I didn't want to deal with the incompatibility even if Alpine is smaller and faster. I got the author to put out a paragraph in the README about alternative, non-glibc not being supported by the prebuilt binary (ghc from Ubuntu isn't static).

beermonster 5y ago

Use it as my goto choice for containers and have never had an issue. Tiny footprint and minimal OS means I can minimise attack surface and package update frequency to boot. Really nice versatile distro.