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Updates can be handled by stuff like unattended-upgrade package in debian (and derivatives. Then you're left with once every 2 years distro version upgrade, whi

by ilyt 4y ago

Updates can be handled by stuff like unattended-upgrade package in debian (and derivatives. Then you're left with once every 2 years distro version upgrade, which if you're using Debian it's just few commands and 5-15 minutes of update + occasional config fix if some app changed enough that some config options you used are deprecated. Adding non-distro repositories can make it a bit iffy tho, as some packages are just made badly and have problems upgrading but it will generally not break your system If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years. Then there is also slew of stuff that are "appliance" type of OS, like FreeNAS, that also allow you to run containers. That's probably best choice if you don't want to play linux admin once every month or two. There is definite lack of "all in one panel" for someone that wants to have "their own linux server" but doesn't want to set up monitoring and a bunch of little stuff around it. When you want some alert generation, some metric monitoring + few automated stuff like "resize this partition when it fills up, up to a limit", it's usually a bunch of scripts + disparate apps. Then again it's "different 20%" problem; 20% of features of those commonly used stacks(grafana/elk/icinga/etc.) is enough to 80% of the users but the 20% is different from person to person. For example, some might care to only have some rough stats to draw a line and see "okay, my hard drive will be full in 2 months, gotta do something about it. But someone else will want same metric solution to also ingest a bunch of stuff from their IoT gadgets. > How will you deal with your self-hosted service when your friends or family rely on it and it is down for an obscure reason on an obscure component you never heard of? ... the same thing happens with "all in one" stuff that automates everything you'd do manually on a plain linux box. Maybe rarer but also harder to find a solution for. In the end, if you want it to be not a problem you need to pay to make it someone's else problem (managed/hosted solution)

sofixa 4y ago
> Updates can be handled by stuff like unattended-upgrade package in debian That won't keep up with the breaking changes this type of software usually has. > If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years. When was the last time you did that? That hasn't been true for literally years.
- nubinetwork 4y ago
  >> If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years. > When was the last time you did that? That hasn't been true for literally years. 20.04 to 22.04 dist-upgrade... kept getting weird errors from apt post-upgrade, it was just easier to blow the vm away and start fresh.
- deadbunny 4y ago
  Not GP but 20.04 to 22.04 fucked something up that ended up (I can't remember what off hand) being quicker and easier to just format and reinstall Ubuntu. Admittedly I did it right after 22.04 dropped rather than waiting for 22.04.1 or even a week would have been fine so that's a little on me.
- ilyt 4y ago
  >> Updates can be handled by stuff like unattended-upgrade package in debian >That won't keep up with the breaking changes this type of software usually has. this only updates to current stable, so there will be no breaking changes as those are essentially security updates. The "breaking changes" part is once every 2 year distro upgrade but it's generally very little, although that heavily depends on software you use of course. That from experience of few hundred machines at work and half a dozen private ones. But if you wrote custom config you will have to change it if the format changed, you won't get away from that no matter how much automation you throw at the thing. >> If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years. > When was the last time you did that? That hasn't been true for literally years. Just recently we fixed a machine of user where they tried to upgrade and some random shit broke. It also filled /boot with a bunch of kernels (it did not remove old ones) that made the machine unbootable coz it ran out of space on kernel update. It still could be booted on old one but of course user didn't knew that. We've actually migrated few people over the years to Debian precisely because they just broke their ubuntu during update somehow. I imagine it is much less with actual competent users and server, not desktop.

by ilyt 4y ago

sofixa 4y ago

> Updates can be handled by stuff like unattended-upgrade package in debian That won't keep up with the breaking changes this type of software usually has. > If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years. When was the last time you did that? That hasn't been true for literally years.

nubinetwork 4y ago
>> If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years. > When was the last time you did that? That hasn't been true for literally years. 20.04 to 22.04 dist-upgrade... kept getting weird errors from apt post-upgrade, it was just easier to blow the vm away and start fresh.
deadbunny 4y ago
Not GP but 20.04 to 22.04 fucked something up that ended up (I can't remember what off hand) being quicker and easier to just format and reinstall Ubuntu. Admittedly I did it right after 22.04 dropped rather than waiting for 22.04.1 or even a week would have been fine so that's a little on me.
ilyt 4y ago
>> Updates can be handled by stuff like unattended-upgrade package in debian >That won't keep up with the breaking changes this type of software usually has. this only updates to current stable, so there will be no breaking changes as those are essentially security updates. The "breaking changes" part is once every 2 year distro upgrade but it's generally very little, although that heavily depends on software you use of course. That from experience of few hundred machines at work and half a dozen private ones. But if you wrote custom config you will have to change it if the format changed, you won't get away from that no matter how much automation you throw at the thing. >> If you're using Ubuntu or ubuntu derivative it's same except its russian roulette whether upgrade will actually work. In my experience just fucking don't or prepare for full reinstall every few years. > When was the last time you did that? That hasn't been true for literally years. Just recently we fixed a machine of user where they tried to upgrade and some random shit broke. It also filled /boot with a bunch of kernels (it did not remove old ones) that made the machine unbootable coz it ran out of space on kernel update. It still could be booted on old one but of course user didn't knew that. We've actually migrated few people over the years to Debian precisely because they just broke their ubuntu during update somehow. I imagine it is much less with actual competent users and server, not desktop.