4 ms·

I feel that “it just works and you don’t need to maintain it” is less an OS feature, and more about what you are doing with it.

by jl6 2y ago

jimnotgym 2y ago
I agree. I have had several services run for a decade on a company LAN using Linux. They did boring things well. They will still work in 20 years if the hardware is still there.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  To be fair I've had Debian boxes with uptimes of many years and service lives of a decade. A sarge install doing nothing but DNS (on metal not VM) from 2006 lasted until 2015. So it isn't just a Linux - BSD thing it's a mindset of simplicity and focus of function. But since about 2020 my love for Debian waned, what with the systemd and ugly internal politics. Nowadays I'm inclined to look at whether a BSD or other operating system [0] might be a good fit for someones needs. Basically I find the most mature mindset exists wherever it's furthest away from the GAFAM/Bigtech values which corrupt, over-complicate everything and try to suck you into ongoing unstable dependency relation. Using "unfashionable" technology is pretty much always a win in my experience. [0] https://www.techradar.com/news/best-alternative-operating-systems https://www.techradar.com/news/best-alternative-operating-sy...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - AStonesThrow 2y ago
    It's interesting, because around 2004-06 was when I struggled mightily with hardware issues, especially audio, and Chris Siebenmann was the one who urged me to "install Ubuntu and be done with it." And Ubuntu really was the value-add, turnkey solution for someone who needed a desktop system as "daily driver" without endless tinkering and custom fixes. But by 2018, Ubuntu was making enough proprietary additions that I didn't need, and I began to notice Debian's maturity and feature parity. But Debian still had a reputation for being extremely stable. So some new installs were Debian, and in 2018 when I purchased a Lenovo notebook, some were Ubuntu-certified, and I chose Red Hat certified, which ultimately ran Fedora quite smoothly. (There were no BSD-certified notebooks.)
steeleduncan 2y ago
Yes, the most concrete issue the article mentions is losing data on Btrfs, but that is well known to be a flaky, semi-experimental file system, the operating system has very little to do with it. The equivalent would be running Debian on ext4 Also, the article mentions Kubernetes a few times, which quite fairly has a reputation for massive complexity, but is again entirely optional, and a piece of software entirely separate from the operating system. I agree with the basic point of achieving reliability by using the simplest technology available, but the focus on the operating system for me is misguided here, and at best a temporary fix. If BSD were to catch on for that reason, Kubernetes would be ported to BSD, and the same problem would arise there
- nxicvyvy 2y ago
  It's also a 10 years out of date complaint. Btrfs has been stable for fucking ages. That meme needs to die.
  - Ygg2 2y ago
    Whenever topic of FS arises, I always hear anecdata that btrfs/ext4 lost data and ZFS was smooth sailing.
    - nxicvyvy 2y ago
      Yes and not a single one of them can quote someone from this decade because it's a shitty internet myth that won't die.
      - viraptor 2y ago
        Also everyone ignores the publicly visible zfs repo/issues. Corruption https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16631 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16631 crash/corruption https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16626 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16626 crash https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16623 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16623 just from this week. One of those filesystems is likely more stable than the other, but the image of perfect zfs is tiring.

I feel that “it just works and you don’t need to maintain it” is less an OS feature, and more about what you are doing with it.

by jl6 2y ago

I feel that “it just works and you don’t need to maintain it” is less an OS feature, and more about what you are doing with it.

jimnotgym 2y ago

I agree. I have had several services run for a decade on a company LAN using Linux. They did boring things well. They will still work in 20 years if the hardware is still there.

nonrandomstring 2y ago
To be fair I've had Debian boxes with uptimes of many years and service lives of a decade. A sarge install doing nothing but DNS (on metal not VM) from 2006 lasted until 2015. So it isn't just a Linux - BSD thing it's a mindset of simplicity and focus of function. But since about 2020 my love for Debian waned, what with the systemd and ugly internal politics. Nowadays I'm inclined to look at whether a BSD or other operating system [0] might be a good fit for someones needs. Basically I find the most mature mindset exists wherever it's furthest away from the GAFAM/Bigtech values which corrupt, over-complicate everything and try to suck you into ongoing unstable dependency relation. Using "unfashionable" technology is pretty much always a win in my experience. [0] https://www.techradar.com/news/best-alternative-operating-systems https://www.techradar.com/news/best-alternative-operating-sy...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  It's interesting, because around 2004-06 was when I struggled mightily with hardware issues, especially audio, and Chris Siebenmann was the one who urged me to "install Ubuntu and be done with it." And Ubuntu really was the value-add, turnkey solution for someone who needed a desktop system as "daily driver" without endless tinkering and custom fixes. But by 2018, Ubuntu was making enough proprietary additions that I didn't need, and I began to notice Debian's maturity and feature parity. But Debian still had a reputation for being extremely stable. So some new installs were Debian, and in 2018 when I purchased a Lenovo notebook, some were Ubuntu-certified, and I chose Red Hat certified, which ultimately ran Fedora quite smoothly. (There were no BSD-certified notebooks.)

steeleduncan 2y ago

Yes, the most concrete issue the article mentions is losing data on Btrfs, but that is well known to be a flaky, semi-experimental file system, the operating system has very little to do with it. The equivalent would be running Debian on ext4 Also, the article mentions Kubernetes a few times, which quite fairly has a reputation for massive complexity, but is again entirely optional, and a piece of software entirely separate from the operating system. I agree with the basic point of achieving reliability by using the simplest technology available, but the focus on the operating system for me is misguided here, and at best a temporary fix. If BSD were to catch on for that reason, Kubernetes would be ported to BSD, and the same problem would arise there

nxicvyvy 2y ago
It's also a 10 years out of date complaint. Btrfs has been stable for fucking ages. That meme needs to die.
- Ygg2 2y ago
  Whenever topic of FS arises, I always hear anecdata that btrfs/ext4 lost data and ZFS was smooth sailing.
  - nxicvyvy 2y ago
    Yes and not a single one of them can quote someone from this decade because it's a shitty internet myth that won't die.
    - viraptor 2y ago
      Also everyone ignores the publicly visible zfs repo/issues. Corruption https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16631 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16631 crash/corruption https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16626 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16626 crash https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16623 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/issues/16623 just from this week. One of those filesystems is likely more stable than the other, but the image of perfect zfs is tiring.