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> Steam does not have this problem. Download game, play game. Software is not that complicated. Steam on Linux essentially has its own "package manager" which

by pxc 1y ago

> Steam does not have this problem. Download game, play game. Software is not that complicated. Steam on Linux essentially has its own "package manager" which uses containerized runtimes: https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools

forrestthewoods 1y ago
The Steam Linux Runtime is pretty bare bones. Their most recent runtime hasn’t been updated in 4 years. That’s quite different.
- yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
  > Their most recent runtime hasn’t been updated in 4 years. That’s quite different. Bad, even.
  - forrestthewoods 1y ago
    False. The exact opposite of bad. The “system” should provide the barest minimum of libraries. Programs should ship as many of their dependencies as is technically feasible. Oh what’s that? Are crying about security updates? Yeah well unfortunately you shipped everything in a Docker container so you need to rebuild and redeploy all of your hierarchical images anyways.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
      > False. The exact opposite of bad. I don't mind stable base systems, I don't mind slow and well tested updates, I actively like holding stable ABIs, but if you haven't updated anything in 4 years, then you are missing bug and security fixes. Not everything needs to be Arch, but this opposite extreme is also bad. > The “system” should provide the barest minimum of libraries. Programs should ship as many of their dependencies as is technically feasible. And then application developers fail to update their vendored dependencies, and thereby leave their users exposed to vulnerabilities. (This isn't hypothetical, it's a thing that has happened.) No, thank you. >Oh what’s that? Are crying about security updates? Yeah well unfortunately you shipped everything in a Docker container so you need to rebuild and redeploy all of your hierarchical images anyways. So... are you arguing that we do need to ship everything vendored in so that it can't be updated, or that we need to actually break out packages to be managed independently (like every major Linux distribution does)? Because you appear to have advocated for vendoring everything, and then immediately turned around to criticize the situation where things get vendored in.
      - forrestthewoods 1y ago
        > So... are you arguing that we do need to ship everything vendored in so that it can't be updated, I’m arguing that the prevalence of Docker is strong evidence that the “Linux model” has fundamentally failed. Many people disagree with that claim and think that TheLinuxModel is good actually. However I point that these people almost definitely make extensive use of Docker. And that Docker (or similar) are actually necessary to reliably run programs on Linux because TheLinuxModel is so bad and has failed so badly. If you believe in TheLinuxModel and also do not use Docker to deploy your software then you are, in the year 2025, a very rare outlier. Personally, I am very pro ShipYourFuckingDependencies. But I also dont think that deploying a program should be much more complicated than sharing an uncompressed zip file. Docker adds a lot of crusting. Packaging images/zips/deployments should be near instantaneous.
        imiric 1y ago
        > I’m arguing that the prevalence of Docker is strong evidence that the “Linux model” has fundamentally failed. That is a very silly argument considering that Docker is built on primitives that Linux exposes. All Docker does is make them accessible via a friendly UI, and adds some nice abstractions on top such as images. It's also silly because there is no single "Linux model". There are many different ways of running applications on Linux, depending on the environment, security requirements, user preference, and so on. The user is free to simply compile software on their own if they wish. This versatility is a strength, not a weakness. Your argument seems to be against package managers as a whole, so I'm not sure why you're attacking Linux. There are many ecosystems where dependencies are not vendored and a package manager is useful, viceversa, or even both. There are very few objectively bad design decisions in computing. They're mostly tradeoffs. Choosing a package manager vs vendoring is one such scenario. So we can argue endlessly about it, or we can save ourselves some time and agree that both approaches have their merits and detriments.
        forrestthewoods 1y ago
        > That is a very silly argument considering that Docker is built on primitives that Linux exposes No. I am specifically talking about the Linuxism where systems have a global pool of shared libraries in one of several common locations (that ever so slightly differs across distros because fuck you). Windows and macOS don’t do this. I don’t pollute system32 with a kajillion random ass DLLs. A Windows PATH is relatively clean from random shit. (Less so when Linux-first software is involved). Stuffing a million libraries into /usr/lib or other PATH locations is a Linuxism. I think this Linuxism is bad. And that it’s so bad everyone now has to use Docker just to reliably run a computer program. Package managers for software libraries to compile programs is a different scenario I’ve not talked about in this thread. Although since you’ve got me ranting the Linuxisms that GCC and Clang follow are also fucking terrible. Linking against the random ass version of glibc on the system is fucking awful software engineering. This is why people also make Docker images of their build environment! Womp womp sad trombone everyone is fired. I don’t blame Linux for making bad decisions. It was the 80s and no one knew better. But it is indeed an extremely bad set of design decisions. We all live with historical artifacts and cruft. Not everything is a trade off.
    - pxc 1y ago
      > Programs should ship as many of their dependencies as is technically feasible. Shipping in a container just is "ship[ping] as many [...] dependencies as is technically feasible". It's "all of them except the kernel". The "barest minimum of libraries" is none. Someone who's using Docker is already doing what you're describing anyway. So why are you scolding them as if they aren't?
      - forrestthewoods 1y ago
        I’m scolding the person who says vendoring dependencies is bad… but then uses docker for everything anyways.

by pxc 1y ago

forrestthewoods 1y ago

The Steam Linux Runtime is pretty bare bones. Their most recent runtime hasn’t been updated in 4 years. That’s quite different.

yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
> Their most recent runtime hasn’t been updated in 4 years. That’s quite different. Bad, even.
- forrestthewoods 1y ago
  False. The exact opposite of bad. The “system” should provide the barest minimum of libraries. Programs should ship as many of their dependencies as is technically feasible. Oh what’s that? Are crying about security updates? Yeah well unfortunately you shipped everything in a Docker container so you need to rebuild and redeploy all of your hierarchical images anyways.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 1y ago
    > False. The exact opposite of bad. I don't mind stable base systems, I don't mind slow and well tested updates, I actively like holding stable ABIs, but if you haven't updated anything in 4 years, then you are missing bug and security fixes. Not everything needs to be Arch, but this opposite extreme is also bad. > The “system” should provide the barest minimum of libraries. Programs should ship as many of their dependencies as is technically feasible. And then application developers fail to update their vendored dependencies, and thereby leave their users exposed to vulnerabilities. (This isn't hypothetical, it's a thing that has happened.) No, thank you. >Oh what’s that? Are crying about security updates? Yeah well unfortunately you shipped everything in a Docker container so you need to rebuild and redeploy all of your hierarchical images anyways. So... are you arguing that we do need to ship everything vendored in so that it can't be updated, or that we need to actually break out packages to be managed independently (like every major Linux distribution does)? Because you appear to have advocated for vendoring everything, and then immediately turned around to criticize the situation where things get vendored in.
    - forrestthewoods 1y ago
      > So... are you arguing that we do need to ship everything vendored in so that it can't be updated, I’m arguing that the prevalence of Docker is strong evidence that the “Linux model” has fundamentally failed. Many people disagree with that claim and think that TheLinuxModel is good actually. However I point that these people almost definitely make extensive use of Docker. And that Docker (or similar) are actually necessary to reliably run programs on Linux because TheLinuxModel is so bad and has failed so badly. If you believe in TheLinuxModel and also do not use Docker to deploy your software then you are, in the year 2025, a very rare outlier. Personally, I am very pro ShipYourFuckingDependencies. But I also dont think that deploying a program should be much more complicated than sharing an uncompressed zip file. Docker adds a lot of crusting. Packaging images/zips/deployments should be near instantaneous.
      - imiric 1y ago
        > I’m arguing that the prevalence of Docker is strong evidence that the “Linux model” has fundamentally failed. That is a very silly argument considering that Docker is built on primitives that Linux exposes. All Docker does is make them accessible via a friendly UI, and adds some nice abstractions on top such as images. It's also silly because there is no single "Linux model". There are many different ways of running applications on Linux, depending on the environment, security requirements, user preference, and so on. The user is free to simply compile software on their own if they wish. This versatility is a strength, not a weakness. Your argument seems to be against package managers as a whole, so I'm not sure why you're attacking Linux. There are many ecosystems where dependencies are not vendored and a package manager is useful, viceversa, or even both. There are very few objectively bad design decisions in computing. They're mostly tradeoffs. Choosing a package manager vs vendoring is one such scenario. So we can argue endlessly about it, or we can save ourselves some time and agree that both approaches have their merits and detriments.
        forrestthewoods 1y ago
        > That is a very silly argument considering that Docker is built on primitives that Linux exposes No. I am specifically talking about the Linuxism where systems have a global pool of shared libraries in one of several common locations (that ever so slightly differs across distros because fuck you). Windows and macOS don’t do this. I don’t pollute system32 with a kajillion random ass DLLs. A Windows PATH is relatively clean from random shit. (Less so when Linux-first software is involved). Stuffing a million libraries into /usr/lib or other PATH locations is a Linuxism. I think this Linuxism is bad. And that it’s so bad everyone now has to use Docker just to reliably run a computer program. Package managers for software libraries to compile programs is a different scenario I’ve not talked about in this thread. Although since you’ve got me ranting the Linuxisms that GCC and Clang follow are also fucking terrible. Linking against the random ass version of glibc on the system is fucking awful software engineering. This is why people also make Docker images of their build environment! Womp womp sad trombone everyone is fired. I don’t blame Linux for making bad decisions. It was the 80s and no one knew better. But it is indeed an extremely bad set of design decisions. We all live with historical artifacts and cruft. Not everything is a trade off.
  - pxc 1y ago
    > Programs should ship as many of their dependencies as is technically feasible. Shipping in a container just is "ship[ping] as many [...] dependencies as is technically feasible". It's "all of them except the kernel". The "barest minimum of libraries" is none. Someone who's using Docker is already doing what you're describing anyway. So why are you scolding them as if they aren't?
    - forrestthewoods 1y ago
      I’m scolding the person who says vendoring dependencies is bad… but then uses docker for everything anyways.