4 ms·

Does Alpine Linux feel bloated too?

by foxfluff 5y ago

mlang23 5y ago
No idea, never tried. I went from SuSE straight to Debian, and haven't bothered to check any other distros out since.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Well, if you ever have the time to give it a try.. Alpine is the most OpenBSD-like Linux distro I've yet to see. Of course, it's still not OpenBSD.
  - opan 5y ago
    What about Void? It even used LibreSSL out of the box for a while.
    - foxfluff 5y ago
      I'm not super fond of rolling releases. It always feels weird when people recommend Arch or Void to an OpenBSD user. OpenBSD has very nice releases with a tested & documented update process between each.
      - raspbeguy 5y ago
        OpenBSD has the -current branch, which is actually a rolling release
        Shared404 5y ago
        And one of the most common pieces of advice I've seen for desktop OpenBSD is to use -current . I don't on desktop because I haven't needed to, and wouldn't want to on a server though.
enriquto 5y ago
It's much better than monstrosities like debian and the like, but still more bloated than OpenBSD. I have raw installs of OpenBSD 6.9 and Alpine on virtual machines. Running "ps ax" fills half of my terminal screen on OpenBSD, and requires several screens on Alpine.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Well, ps on linux shows kernel threads whereas on OpenBSD it doesn't. The list is pretty short on my alpine install if you exclude kernel threads: # ps ax | grep -v ']$' PID USER TIME COMMAND 1 root 0:01 /sbin/init 1985 root 0:00 /sbin/udevd 2361 root 0:00 /sbin/syslogd -t 2387 root 0:00 supervise-daemon wpa_supplicant --start /sbin/wpa_supplicant -- -i wlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 2388 root 0:00 /sbin/wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 2473 root 0:00 /sbin/udhcpc -b -R -p /var/run/udhcpc.wlan0.pid -i wlan0 -x hostname:pi4 2567 chrony 0:00 /usr/sbin/chronyd -f /etc/chrony/chrony.conf 2592 root 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond -c /etc/crontabs 2621 root 0:00 sshd: /usr/sbin/sshd [listener] 0 of 10-100 startups 2652 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1 2653 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2 2654 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3 2655 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4 2656 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5 2657 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6 3099 root 0:00 sshd: root@pts/0 3102 root 0:00 -ash 3109 root 0:00 ps ax 3110 root 0:00 grep -v ]$ I don't think kernel threads are a good measure of bloat. And a base install of Alpine is smaller than OpenBSD. But that's a fair point about presentation. OpenBSD seems to be more 'quiet' by default, and tends to only show relevant information. dmesg on OpenBSD seems much cleaner compared to the mess that Linux outputs.
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    > I don't think kernel threads are a good measure of bloat. It kinda is. Totally unrelated, but there is nothing quite like seeing hundreds of [nfsd] tasks hard-blocking in D on each server in a cluster. Time to reboot... well... everything.
  - flatiron 5y ago

Does Alpine Linux feel bloated too?

mlang23 5y ago

No idea, never tried. I went from SuSE straight to Debian, and haven't bothered to check any other distros out since.

foxfluff 5y ago
Well, if you ever have the time to give it a try.. Alpine is the most OpenBSD-like Linux distro I've yet to see. Of course, it's still not OpenBSD.
- opan 5y ago
  What about Void? It even used LibreSSL out of the box for a while.
  - foxfluff 5y ago
    I'm not super fond of rolling releases. It always feels weird when people recommend Arch or Void to an OpenBSD user. OpenBSD has very nice releases with a tested & documented update process between each.
    - raspbeguy 5y ago
      OpenBSD has the -current branch, which is actually a rolling release
      - Shared404 5y ago
        And one of the most common pieces of advice I've seen for desktop OpenBSD is to use -current . I don't on desktop because I haven't needed to, and wouldn't want to on a server though.

enriquto 5y ago

It's much better than monstrosities like debian and the like, but still more bloated than OpenBSD. I have raw installs of OpenBSD 6.9 and Alpine on virtual machines. Running "ps ax" fills half of my terminal screen on OpenBSD, and requires several screens on Alpine.

foxfluff 5y ago
Well, ps on linux shows kernel threads whereas on OpenBSD it doesn't. The list is pretty short on my alpine install if you exclude kernel threads: # ps ax | grep -v ']$' PID USER TIME COMMAND 1 root 0:01 /sbin/init 1985 root 0:00 /sbin/udevd 2361 root 0:00 /sbin/syslogd -t 2387 root 0:00 supervise-daemon wpa_supplicant --start /sbin/wpa_supplicant -- -i wlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 2388 root 0:00 /sbin/wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf 2473 root 0:00 /sbin/udhcpc -b -R -p /var/run/udhcpc.wlan0.pid -i wlan0 -x hostname:pi4 2567 chrony 0:00 /usr/sbin/chronyd -f /etc/chrony/chrony.conf 2592 root 0:00 /usr/sbin/crond -c /etc/crontabs 2621 root 0:00 sshd: /usr/sbin/sshd [listener] 0 of 10-100 startups 2652 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1 2653 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2 2654 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3 2655 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4 2656 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5 2657 root 0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6 3099 root 0:00 sshd: root@pts/0 3102 root 0:00 -ash 3109 root 0:00 ps ax 3110 root 0:00 grep -v ]$ I don't think kernel threads are a good measure of bloat. And a base install of Alpine is smaller than OpenBSD. But that's a fair point about presentation. OpenBSD seems to be more 'quiet' by default, and tends to only show relevant information. dmesg on OpenBSD seems much cleaner compared to the mess that Linux outputs.
- formerly_proven 5y ago
  > I don't think kernel threads are a good measure of bloat. It kinda is. Totally unrelated, but there is nothing quite like seeing hundreds of [nfsd] tasks hard-blocking in D on each server in a cluster. Time to reboot... well... everything.
- flatiron 5y ago