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Ive experimented with several small distros for this when doing cross platform development. In my experience, by the time you’re compiling and running code and
by Aurornis 11mo ago
Ive experimented with several small distros for this when doing cross platform development.
In my experience, by the time you’re compiling and running code and installing dev dependencies on the remote machine, the size of the base OS isn’t a concern. I gained nothing from using smaller distros but lost a lot of time dealing with little issues and incompatibilities.
This won’t win me any hacker points, but now if I need a remote graphical Linux VM I go straight for the latest Ubuntu and call it day. Then I can get to work on my code and not chasing my tail with all of the little quirks that appear from using less popular distros.
The small distros have their place for specific use cases, especially automation, testing, or other things that need to scale. For one-offs where you’re already going to be installing a lot of other things and doing resource intensive work, it’s a safer bet to go with a popular full-size distro so you can focus on what matters.
- dotancohen 11mo agoTo really hammer this home: Alpine uses musl instead of glibc for the C standard library. This has caused me all types of trouble in unexpected places. I'm all for suggestions for a better base OS in small docker containers, mostly to run nginx, php, postgress, mysql, redis, and python.
- autotune 11mo agoHow about debian-slim?
- dotancohen 11mo agoI actually have used that, thank you. Excellent choice.
- throwaway2037 11mo ago> Alpine uses musl instead of glibc for the C standard library. This has caused me all types of trouble in unexpected places. I have no experience with alternative C libs. Can you share some example issues?
- dotancohen 11mo agoDNS queries randomly failing: https://purplecarrot.co.uk/post/2021-09-04-does_alpine-resolve_dns_properly/ https://purplecarrot.co.uk/post/2021-09-04-does_alpine-resol...
- LeFantome 11mo agoNot an issue anymore
- dotancohen 11mo agoReally? I seen to remember this being considered "not a bug" by some narrow view of the issue.
- lproven 11mo agoFixed over 2 years ago, as I reported at the time. https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/16/alpine_linux_318/ https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/16/alpine_linux_318/
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- lproven 11mo ago> I have no experience with alternative C libs. Can you share some example issues? No precompiled Linux stuff runs. No Chrome, no 3rd party Electron apps work unless specifically ported. For me, no Slack, no Panwriter, no Ferdium. Flatpak works, sort of, with restrictions. Snap doesn't.
- t_mahmood 11mo agoValid points, completely forgot about that part, and even with installation script, I manage to waste a good amount of time downloading and setting things up. Question, I use VirtualBox, but I feel it's kind a laggy sometimes, What do you use? Any suggestion on performance improvements?
- dotancohen 11mo agoIs docker valid for your use case?
- t_mahmood 11mo agoDocker to start IntelliJ and access remotely from my Laptop, will have to tunnel. Hm, I should give this a try. I was not sure if Docker+GUI goes well.