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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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The Cloud Native Linux Desktop Model (e.g. Silverblue) (www.youtube.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Hi! I made the video and also happen to volunteer with flathub. The reason I've called it "cloud native" is because that's the common term used in the industry already and server people know what that means. "Immutable" is a terrible term that is neither technically accurate or something users need to care about.

As for the CLI thing. Shoving CLIs into flatpaks could be a thing but that wouldn't really solve a problem, it would just mean adding one more ocean to boil and someone would have to volunteer to package htop for the 30th time. There's no need to do that, distros already have htop!

It's a better time investment to fix the UX for containers on the desktop, especially since Mac and Windows are already there. :-/ There's a few options that people are exploring that are worth discussing.

podmansh has awesome potential, you just define a system-level container that has init and all the stuff people expect, then it would behave like the distro people are coming from. I suspect this is where CoreOS/Fedora will end up.
exo - we have a spec over at ublue to just add container support directly to the terminal, like how WSL/windows terminal does it. This is the approach Canonical is taking with workshops
Direct package management in your home dir - also an option, you can just install homebrew, nix, or tea or whatever install packages in your home directory and then it's totally decoupled from the system.

I personally use distrobox with the assemble pattern to have what I need on all my machines, but hopefully as time progresses distros will do a better job integrating all this stuff. I hope this helps answer some of your questions!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks for the response! Flathub is a fantastic project so glad to hear about your contributions. Your videos have been helpful for me as introductions to Silvelblue ideas and statuses.

I don't have much to say about the term "cloud native" personally, it doesn't seem too important. I think myself and others react against it because cloud tech is mostly used by businesses and "server people" to deliver products (sometimes at the cost of user freedom), and so has either a non or negative connotation in the FOSS linux desktop space. But names are names, and accuracy matters most. I don't think etiher "cloud native" or "immutable" are really all that helpful as technical terms though, maybe something else should be used (image based, atomic, container centric, ?).

I'm not sure I understand "distros already have htop." Distros already have everything packaged for flatpak, yet they were packaged for flatpak. The real question is why do flatpaks exist at all if you can just run programs in containers, OR why do containers exist at all if you can just run programs as flatpaks (assuming everything we wanted were available as a flatpak). That is: what are the technical / UX reasons to choose flatpak over containers and vice versa?

Podmansh looks very cool! That's definitely the direction I'd like to see these sorts of projects moving in. The #1 issue I have at the moment with this OS model is customization/tinkering/hackability. I want to have the niceties of atomic updates and reproducible builds, and containers on their own are great. But not if it takes away my ability to make my system fit my needs. I have no interest in using a macbook.

The future of these technologies looks bright, and they are clearly functional today, but I'm not sure any of them meet my needs yet as someone who likes to have a great deal of control and understanding of my system.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The real question is why do flatpaks exist at all if you can just run programs in containers

flatpaks and containers use the same kernel tech underneath, cgroups and namespaces, it's just a specific implementation designed for desktop apps, and it has things like portals and stuff that's specific for gui apps. So for example, if you use silverblue, you use htop, but it wouldn't make sense as a flatpak when there's a full fedora installation delivered via a container already on your desktop, you'd just dnf install htop and move on.

But not if it takes away my ability to make my system fit my needs.

This is the problem with the term "immutable". For some reason people seem to think that these systems take away configurability and freedom to tinker, which is wrong because the entire point of cloud native is composability. You declare what your system is supposed to look like, and then a deployable artifact comes out the other end, that's pretty much it. Hope this helps!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I think flatpak could perfectly fine for installing cli applications even though it is designed for desktop applications.

Shoving CLIs into flatpaks could be a thing but that wouldn’t really solve a problem, it would just mean adding one more ocean to boil and someone would have to volunteer to package htop for the 30th time.

Flatpak is distribution independent, which means, it could be actually reduce repackaging.

flatpaks and containers use the same kernel tech underneath, cgroups and namespaces, it’s just a specific implementation designed for desktop apps, and it has things like portals and stuff that’s specific for gui apps.

While that is true, I don't see, why this is a problem for CLI applications to be installed and run via flatpaks.

Direct package management in your home dir - also an option, you can just install homebrew, nix, or tea or whatever install packages in your home directory and then it’s totally decoupled from the system.

Can you explain, why this works better, than flatpaks? I mean it does not matter what flatpaks were intended for originally, if they do the job just fine.

So for example, if you use silverblue, you use htop, but it wouldn’t make sense as a flatpak when there’s a full fedora installation delivered via a container already on your desktop, you’d just dnf install htop and move on.

I found this approach lacking, because:

I always have to remember what is the right container for the right tool.
Installing software can be quite annoying. I can't simply add some dnf install foo in a bashscript. Controlling a container via bash is not that easy (or, I don't know how it works)
Tracking installed software is painful. Now I have to check every container, if and where something is installed.