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I ran Gobo for a while and really enjoyed some of their ideas. It was started by Hisham Muhammad, the author of htop. It’s a shame that it didn’t get more trac

I ran Gobo for a while and really enjoyed some of their ideas. It was started by Hisham Muhammad, the author of htop. It’s a shame that it didn’t get more traction. We probably wouldn’t have needed Docker or any of the gazillion package managers that are proliferating today if it had.

geenat 3y ago
> We probably wouldn’t have needed Docker or any of the gazillion package managers that are proliferating today if it had. 100% feel this way too. So much of the reason why we use containers is just not spreading crap all over the filesystem. It's why single binary distributables made popular by Golang are such a winner, ex: Caddy.
- discardedrefuse 3y ago
  You might be interested in Fedora's Atomic desktops. They are immutable OS's where you don't spread crap all over the filesystem. Instead you rely on flatpaks, containers (toolbox or distrobox), and single binaries (if you got them). https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/ https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/
  - geenat 3y ago
    Been keeping an eye on it. Would be far more excited about GoboLinux though, to be honest. > the filesystem is the database is such an epiphany for GoboLinux, truly atomic.
Cloudef 3y ago
Its been succeeded by nix and guix, theres reason you are increasingly seeing flake.nix in open source projects
- pantantrant 3y ago
  Both aren't that reproducible, I keep running into sha256 hash nondeterminism when upgrading packages on nixos from source after not updating for a while and guix may be better at this.
  - Cloudef 3y ago
    Are you using channels or flakes? Channels are non-deterministic as your nixpkgs essentially changes completely. Flakes always are deterministic as long as your binary cache is valid or the network hasn't bitrotten, or you managed to escape the nix sandbox somehow (or used --impure). Guix is much newer than nix so it has less pain points, but IIRC guix has no flakes equivalent which is kind of deal breaker to me personally. Of course nix also has one quite big issue, and that it is input addressed rather than content addressed, but its moving towards content addressed model which will reduce rebuilds and resource use https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Ca-derivations https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Ca-derivations
guytv 3y ago
Was a linux distro that's "source based" (i.e. no package manager) even a viable choice for real world server / desktop setup?
- BirAdam 3y ago
  I am not aware of any Linux distribution that has no package manager (except for LFS, which isn't a distribution per se). Source-based systems typically have some kind of package manager. Gentoo: portage, GoboLinux: Compile, Slackware: pkgtools + sbo, Sourcer/SourceMage: sorcery, Lunar: lin, CRUX: pkgutils, and so on. Edit, additionally, yes. Such distributions are suitable for essentially any task for which any other distribution is suitable. The primary caution that I would offer anyone when venturing away from RHEL/Debian is how much you trust whatever organization to still be around in five years. If you're comfortable managing everything yourself, pick whatever; otherwise, it's "safest" to choose something that either contractually will still be around (RHEL), or is governed in a way that ensures some continuity (Debian).

geenat 3y ago

> We probably wouldn’t have needed Docker or any of the gazillion package managers that are proliferating today if it had. 100% feel this way too. So much of the reason why we use containers is just not spreading crap all over the filesystem. It's why single binary distributables made popular by Golang are such a winner, ex: Caddy.

discardedrefuse 3y ago
You might be interested in Fedora's Atomic desktops. They are immutable OS's where you don't spread crap all over the filesystem. Instead you rely on flatpaks, containers (toolbox or distrobox), and single binaries (if you got them). https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/ https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/
- geenat 3y ago
  Been keeping an eye on it. Would be far more excited about GoboLinux though, to be honest. > the filesystem is the database is such an epiphany for GoboLinux, truly atomic.

Cloudef 3y ago

Its been succeeded by nix and guix, theres reason you are increasingly seeing flake.nix in open source projects

pantantrant 3y ago
Both aren't that reproducible, I keep running into sha256 hash nondeterminism when upgrading packages on nixos from source after not updating for a while and guix may be better at this.
- Cloudef 3y ago
  Are you using channels or flakes? Channels are non-deterministic as your nixpkgs essentially changes completely. Flakes always are deterministic as long as your binary cache is valid or the network hasn't bitrotten, or you managed to escape the nix sandbox somehow (or used --impure). Guix is much newer than nix so it has less pain points, but IIRC guix has no flakes equivalent which is kind of deal breaker to me personally. Of course nix also has one quite big issue, and that it is input addressed rather than content addressed, but its moving towards content addressed model which will reduce rebuilds and resource use https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Ca-derivations https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Ca-derivations

guytv 3y ago

Was a linux distro that's "source based" (i.e. no package manager) even a viable choice for real world server / desktop setup?

BirAdam 3y ago
I am not aware of any Linux distribution that has no package manager (except for LFS, which isn't a distribution per se). Source-based systems typically have some kind of package manager. Gentoo: portage, GoboLinux: Compile, Slackware: pkgtools + sbo, Sourcer/SourceMage: sorcery, Lunar: lin, CRUX: pkgutils, and so on. Edit, additionally, yes. Such distributions are suitable for essentially any task for which any other distribution is suitable. The primary caution that I would offer anyone when venturing away from RHEL/Debian is how much you trust whatever organization to still be around in five years. If you're comfortable managing everything yourself, pick whatever; otherwise, it's "safest" to choose something that either contractually will still be around (RHEL), or is governed in a way that ensures some continuity (Debian).