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We are actively working on migrating away from Ubuntu minimized images towards Alpine, because Ubuntu makes significant changes every major release that break b

We are actively working on migrating away from Ubuntu minimized images towards Alpine, because Ubuntu makes significant changes every major release that break basic expectations on the system around packaging, networking, service management and other aspects that affect lower-level system software. If your app is run inside of an app server proxied through a web server, you probably don't care that much about the underlying OS changes. If your app is system-level, underlying OS changes are a significant maintenance cost that greatly increases friction and reduces feature velocity. Alpine's environmental stability and tiny security footprint make it ideal for system software that is being containerized.

kdjfjxidj 4y ago
really feel you will benefit more from undertanding containers (i.e. processes) correctly instead of rebuilding and evaluating different bundles of pseudo OS to wrap your programs
- tristor 4y ago
  I am very certain that my understanding of containers is correct. I have been working deeply with containerization techniques on Linux since well before the creation of Docker, including on the (then) largest containerized production systems in the world. I've also spoken extensively at major technical conferences on the topic. I've sat on technical committees evaluating containerization techniques, both privately (inside a company) and publicly (as part of open projects). I'm quite assured of my knowledge on the topic, but am always open to new information. If you have something specific you think you know that is related to my exact application where I am mistaken, please inform me, and I'll give it all due consideration. I suspect you don't, since you also don't know my exact application for doing this, so it seems a bit presumption to have the response that you did.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  What does understanding containers have to do with choice of base image?
pella 4y ago
However, there are also changes in Alpine Linux. https://www.alpinelinux.org/posts/Alpine-3.16.0-released.html https://www.alpinelinux.org/posts/Alpine-3.16.0-released.htm... SIGNIFICANT CHANGES: "sudo has been moved to community repository, which means that only latest stable release branch will get security updates in the future. Suggested replacement is doas and doas-sudo-shim." https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/tsc/-/issues/1 https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/tsc/-/issues/1
- tristor 4y ago
  Yes. I would hope /any/ OS has changes over time to continually improve, as long as those changes are properly documented and have a valid deprecation pathway, it's not an issue for software under activate maintenance. The problem with Ubuntu is that they have made, and are accelerating, changes that provide no relevant benefits for most use cases and without good documentation or deprecation pathways, and with core OS functionality. They are making a lot of user-hostile changes that are intended to push users towards using Canonical created tooling and systems away from standardized techniques that work across distributions (e.g. the move from /etc/network/interfaces to netplan, the current push towards snaps away from apt packages). By contrast, the changes in something like Alpine are much easier to deal with as part of our maintenance. Many of the changes are more negatively impactful for use-cases are Alpine that are outside of containerized applications, so they don't impact us.
  - thinking001001 4y ago
    Would somewhat agree/disagree. Debian installer is kind of a monster, but Ubuntu's changes to the installer broke compatibility with tried-and-tested PXE install software (i.e. Cobbler). Ubuntu's packaging of Firefox as a Snap (outside of apt) though is very much a surprise at first, and makes it easy to mistake your system/browser as being up-to-date... And that Firefox Snap container is not sandboxed like OpenBSD, and has full filesystem access.
- thinking001001 4y ago
  Given the privilege escalations in sudo and the bajillion untestable features built-in, arguably the Linux community should've moved on from it many years ago, following OpenBSD's lead...

kdjfjxidj 4y ago

really feel you will benefit more from undertanding containers (i.e. processes) correctly instead of rebuilding and evaluating different bundles of pseudo OS to wrap your programs

tristor 4y ago
I am very certain that my understanding of containers is correct. I have been working deeply with containerization techniques on Linux since well before the creation of Docker, including on the (then) largest containerized production systems in the world. I've also spoken extensively at major technical conferences on the topic. I've sat on technical committees evaluating containerization techniques, both privately (inside a company) and publicly (as part of open projects). I'm quite assured of my knowledge on the topic, but am always open to new information. If you have something specific you think you know that is related to my exact application where I am mistaken, please inform me, and I'll give it all due consideration. I suspect you don't, since you also don't know my exact application for doing this, so it seems a bit presumption to have the response that you did.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
What does understanding containers have to do with choice of base image?

pella 4y ago

However, there are also changes in Alpine Linux. https://www.alpinelinux.org/posts/Alpine-3.16.0-released.html https://www.alpinelinux.org/posts/Alpine-3.16.0-released.htm... SIGNIFICANT CHANGES: "sudo has been moved to community repository, which means that only latest stable release branch will get security updates in the future. Suggested replacement is doas and doas-sudo-shim." https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/tsc/-/issues/1 https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/tsc/-/issues/1

tristor 4y ago
Yes. I would hope /any/ OS has changes over time to continually improve, as long as those changes are properly documented and have a valid deprecation pathway, it's not an issue for software under activate maintenance. The problem with Ubuntu is that they have made, and are accelerating, changes that provide no relevant benefits for most use cases and without good documentation or deprecation pathways, and with core OS functionality. They are making a lot of user-hostile changes that are intended to push users towards using Canonical created tooling and systems away from standardized techniques that work across distributions (e.g. the move from /etc/network/interfaces to netplan, the current push towards snaps away from apt packages). By contrast, the changes in something like Alpine are much easier to deal with as part of our maintenance. Many of the changes are more negatively impactful for use-cases are Alpine that are outside of containerized applications, so they don't impact us.
- thinking001001 4y ago
  Would somewhat agree/disagree. Debian installer is kind of a monster, but Ubuntu's changes to the installer broke compatibility with tried-and-tested PXE install software (i.e. Cobbler). Ubuntu's packaging of Firefox as a Snap (outside of apt) though is very much a surprise at first, and makes it easy to mistake your system/browser as being up-to-date... And that Firefox Snap container is not sandboxed like OpenBSD, and has full filesystem access.
thinking001001 4y ago
Given the privilege escalations in sudo and the bajillion untestable features built-in, arguably the Linux community should've moved on from it many years ago, following OpenBSD's lead...