 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 924, 5 July 2021 |
Welcome to this year's 26th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
The variety and number of types of computers available to consumers is growing. These days people have an array of products they can purchase, ranging from the classic x86_64 personal computers, to single-board ARM devices, to emerging RISC-V powered machines. In our News section we discuss some distributions, such as Ubuntu and AlmaLinux OS, expanding their hardware support. We also talk about Fedora planning to enable a filtered version of the Flathub package repository and report on the NuTyX project shutting down. First though we discuss Bedrock Linux, an unusual meta distribution which provides a way to merge features from multiple distributions into one operating system. Our Feature Story provides details on the benefits to Bedrock Linux while also discussing its limitations. Have you used Bedrock? Let us know about your experiences in this week's Opinion Poll and in the comments section. Also on the topic of borrowing features from different operating systems, we discuss the benefits of porting OpenBSD security tools to Linux in our Questions and Answers column. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of this past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Bedrock Linux 0.7.20
- News: Fedora to enable filtered Flathub, Ubuntu supports RISC-V, AlmaLinux OS supports ARM, NuTyX project shutting down
- Questions and answers: Porting OpenBSD security features to Linux
- Released last week: Pop!_OS 21.04, KaOS 2021.06, Q4OS 3.15
- Torrent corner: Absolute, Arch, KaOS, Kodachi, Nitrux, openmamba, PCLinuxOS, Pop!_OS, Q4OS
- Opinion poll: Mixing features using Bedrock
- New distributions: Hos OS, Anadolu Panteri, NavyLinux, JarroNegro
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (15MB) and MP3 (11MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Bedrock Linux 0.7.20
Bedrock Linux is one of the more interesting projects I have come across in my travels through the open source community. Bedrock Linux is a meta distribution, meaning it is not really a distribution of the Linux kernel and corresponding userland tools. Instead it is a special kind of tool which allows different Linux distributions to work together as though they were one operating system.
Put another way, consider that many people feel concern with how much diversity (or fragmentation, if you prefer) there is in the Linux ecosystem. People worry there are too many package managers, too many different formats and standards. They feel frustration at knowing different distributions have different strengths and weaknesses. They rankle at the conflict of wanting to install a Red Hat Enterprise Linux clone to get long-term stability while also wanting a few cutting edge programs from the Arch Linux repository.
Bedrock Linux seeks to reverse, or at least offer an alternative, to fragmentation. With Bedrock we can install one distribution, which we might think of as our main or primary operating system. Then, without using a virtual machine, Bedrock allows us to install a second distribution and effectively glue on the parts of the second distribution we want. This means you can have the stability and massive package repository of Debian in your main operating system while sampling the latest new packages being demonstrated in Fedora and grabbing rarely packaged programs from Arch Linux's User Repository (AUR). With Bedrock Linux the idea is that you don't need to choose which distribution you run and you don't need separate virtual machines or partitions for each distribution. Bedrock effectively glues multiple distributions, along with their tools and package managers, into one meta-distro.
Let's take a look at a hands-on example of Bedrock in action. Keep in mind, before diving in, that there are some limitations. There are components of distributions which don't play well when working across Bedrock's boundaries. There are also some limitations which are covered on the Bedrock website. For instance, it is typically a good idea to use the init software and desktop environments of your first (primary) distribution. In other words, you may run into trouble if you install MX Linux with SysV init and Xfce, but then decide you want to use the Cinnamon desktop and systemd from a secondary installation of Linux Mint later. Try to make sure the init, service manager, and desktop environments you want are all in the primary distribution. Add-on tools, package managers, and desktop applications from secondary systems all appear to work as expected.
The compatibility page points out that some specialized tools such as Timeshift for Btrfs snapshots and SELinux will not work correctly with Bedrock because it needs to do some unusual manipulation to glue various distributions together.
With these limitations in mind I decided to set up Void as my primary distribution and then perform three tests. The first was to install Arch Linux and try to add some software from Arch's user repository (also known as the AUR). The second was to install Ubuntu 18.04 and then replace it with Ubuntu 20.04 to see how Bedrock would do with fetching a new version of an operating system and then removing the older version, essentially performing a live upgrade without any reboots. I was also curious to see if Snap packages would work within Ubuntu running on Bedrock when Void is the primary operating system. Snap packages require systemd to work, which would be included within Ubuntu's level of Bedrock, but Void runs the runit init software which is not compatible with Snaps. I was interested in seeing the practical results.
Getting started
I began my trial by performing a fresh installation of Void. I chose the distribution's glibc build with the Xfce desktop environment. Void is a relatively small distribution and was quick to set up. I then downloaded the appropriate Bedrock script for my CPU architecture (x86_64) and ran what Bedrock calls the "hijack" command as it converts an existing distribution into the Bedrock platform. The command looked like this: "sudo sh ./bedrock-linux-0.7.20-x86_64.sh --hijack".
Bedrock Linux 0.7.20 -- Bedrock hijacking the Void distribution
(full image size: 196kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The script produces a big banner with a warning letting us know this is a dangerous action and not reversible. After I accepted responsibility for the conversion attempt the script did some initial checks and completed its setup in under five seconds. The script concludes by advising us to reboot the computer to complete the Bedrock setup process.
From this point on, when the system booted it would pause and ask which init system it should run. At first I only had Void's runit installed and it was the single option available. If we don't make a selection the first one is picked automatically after 30 seconds.
At first Void seemed to be the same as always. I was able to login, run programs, and generally nothing appeared to change. However, I then remembered I had not installed software updates yet and ran the XBPS package manager to grab the latest package versions. Once I restarted the system Void could no longer boot. The start-up process would display a series of filesystem errors, all relating to Btrfs. I had set up Btrfs as Void's main filesystem with the thought of possibly using some of its features like volume expansion and snapshots later.
As I couldn't get the system to boot I performed a fresh installation, this time setting up Void on the ext4 filesystem. I then used the Bedrock script to hijack Void again. This time, when I used XBPS to install all waiting updates the system restarted normally. It seems Bedrock and Btrfs have some compatibility problems beyond the aforementioned Timeshift snapshot limitations.
At this point Bedrock is on the system, or put another way, Bedrock has become the underlying operating system. However, it isn't really doing anything for us yet. In my case, I was still (for all practical purposes) just running Void. To really make use of Bedrock we need to fetch new distributions (I call them secondary operating systems) and glue their parts onto Bedrock. We can do this with the "brl fetch" command. Each new distribution is referred to as a layer or "strata" by Bedrock. We can see available strata that Bedrock knows how to install by running "brl fetch --list". For example, to install Arch Linux on top of Bedrock we can run "brl fetch arch".
Bedrock Linux 0.7.20 -- Running the Arch package manager on a Void-based system
(full image size: 194kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Bedrock downloads and bootstraps a minimal set of Arch Linux packages and, from that point on, we can run Arch commands and use the distribution's pacman package manager. The Arch commands, such as pacman, act as though they are installed right alongside the Void tools. For example, if I run "xbps-install" it is recognized as a Void command, but if I run "pacman" it is automatically recognized as an Arch command and uses the Arch files and libraries to make it work. The experience is almost entirely transparent.
At this point I was able to install Arch's development packages and grab third-party packages from the Arch User Repository, build them, install them, and run these programs alongside Void applications.
Daily usage and surprises
Earlier I said that working with files and applications from the various levels (or strata) is nearly transparent. Typically running an application or performing a task on the command line acts as though Bedrock is just a typical Linux distribution and it pulls in the files and programs it needs from each strata seamlessly. However, there are times when this is not true and it can take a person by surprise.
For instance, I had the vi text editor installed on Void and the nano text editor installed under the Arch strata. If I wanted to edit a text file in my Documents folder, I could run either "nano ~/Documents/myfile.txt" or "vi ~/Documents/myfile.txt". Bedrock would correctly find the proper text editor, in its respective strata, and then open my file. This works wonderfully. However, there are times when each strata has its own copy of a file. For instance, the /etc/os-release file exists in both the Void and Arch distributions. If I ran "nano /etc/os-release" I would see the Arch version of this text file while if I ran "vi /etc/os-release" I'd get to see the Void version of the file. Bedrock would present to me the version of the text file corresponding to the strata in which it found the program I was running.
This can take a person by surprise if each distribution they install has its own copy of, for instance, the sudo configuration file. Depending on which tool we use to view the configuration file we can get to see an entirely different file. To work around this tricky situation Bedrock allows us to specify which strata we want to work with. This is done with the strat command, as in "strat arch cat /etc/os-release" or "strat void cat /etc/os-release". Both of these commands will display the contents of the release file in the named strata.
Bedrock Linux 0.7.20 -- Viewing files with the same name in different strata
(full image size: 149kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
You might be wondering, as I did, if there is a way to determine which parts of the filesystem are duplicated across layers and which ones, like our home directory, are unique and therefore unaffected by using applications from different distributions. It looks as though running the mount command and checking for filesystems will show us if a region is duplicated across strata, requiring us to use the strat command to specify which layer we want to use. For instance, running "mount | grep /tmp" shows multiple /tmp directories are in use. Likewise "mount | grep /etc" shows more than one /etc directory. However, when I ran "mount | grep /home/jesse" there were no entries which seems to indicate my home directory is unique across all layers.
Applications I installed under my primary distribution (Void) would show up in the application menu, though programs installed in secondary levels (Arch and Ubuntu in my experiment) would not. I could work around this by either manually creating a shortcut in the application menu or copying the launcher I wanted from the secondary distribution's strata. For instance, I could copy launchers from the Ubuntu strata by running "cp /bedrock/strata/ubuntu/usr/share/applications/gimp.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/".
Adding more layers
Earlier I mentioned we can see which distributions can be installed on Bedrock as additional strata by running "brl fetch --list". However, if we want to grab a specific version of a distribution the syntax changes slightly. For instance, to see all available version of Ubuntu we can run "brl fetch ubuntu --releases". This will list the distribution's version using numbers or, in Ubuntu's case, with code names. We can then grab a past version of Ubuntu using a command such as "brl fetch -r bionic ubuntu" or "brl fetch -r focal ubuntu". In situations where we want to install multiple versions of the same distribution we need to make up a custom name of the strata (something other than just "Fedora" or "Ubuntu"). We can do this by specifying the "-n" flag, for example: "brl fetch -n myfocal -r focal ubuntu". This results in the new version of Ubuntu being called "myfocal" instead of the more generic "ubuntu" label.
Bedrock Linux 0.7.20 -- Running GIMP from the Ubuntu Bionic strata
(full image size: 337kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I tried to install Snap packages under the Ubuntu strata. The first snag I ran into was that the Snap software was not installed in the minimum Ubuntu layer. I installed snap and snapd. The snap client would run, but I could not get the snapd service to run. The service start command would bail out reporting it was unable to run in a chroot environment. I was, however, able to install the Flatpak framework, enable the Flathub repository and run games packaged with the Flatpak format.
Bedrock Linux 0.7.20 -- Running a Flatpak bundle
(full image size: 148kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Speaking of working with software packages, it is possible to install the same program under multiple strata. This is especially useful if we want to experiment with multiple versions of the same application. At one point I installed the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) 2.8 under Ubuntu Bionic and GIMP 2.10 under Ubuntu Focal. I could then launch either version by specifying the strata holding the GIMP version I wanted. From the command line this looked like "strat bionic gimp" and "strat focal gimp". The strata share one process space though and GIMP would only allow one version of itself to run at the same time.
Once we are done with a distribution we can remove it with the "brl remove" command. This wipes the distribution layer and its programs from the system.
More advanced concepts
Gluing multiple distributions together and using them almost seamlessly seems like enough complexity for me and I really like how well Bedrock handles merging distributions together. For people who want even more power, there are some additional interesting concepts Bedrock offers. For instance, we can make a copy of a strata. This means we could, for instance, make a backup of an existing distribution, perform an upgrade on it, and if anything goes wrong we could then simply delete the upgraded layer and go back to using the backup copy. In other words, we can make near-live images of our operating system before performing risky operations.
Conclusions
Bedrock is one of the more intriguing projects I have had the pleasure to use recently. It not only provides one heck of a toolbox for making distributions work together without requiring virtual machines or Docker, it does so quickly and with a minimal amount of knowledge required by the user. In short, we have a very easy way to run multiple distributions as if they were one operating system with almost no extra overhead in terms of CPU or memory usage. We do use a little extra disk space, but running Void, two versions of Ubuntu, and one copy of Arch only consumed around 7GB of disk space - about the same amount of disk consumption some large mainstream distributions use.
I also like how Bedrock essentially reverses distribution fragmentation. If you're tired of needing to run different distributions to gain access to a specific program or package manager, then you can run Bedrock and gain access to just about everything and use it seamlessly as one operating system. It's really quite a remarkable bit of engineering and, once I got used to how the different strata fit together, I encountered virtually no problems with it. There was the drawback that I couldn't use SELinux or Btrfs with Bedrock, but Bedrock's strata copying capabilities provide a sort of snapshot and there are other access controls people can use in place of SELinux. All in all, I'm quite happy with Bedrock.
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Visitor supplied rating
Bedrock Linux has a visitor supplied average rating of: 9.6/10 from 8 review(s).
Have you used Bedrock Linux? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Fedora to enable filtered Flathub, Ubuntu supports RISC-V, AlmaLinux OS supports ARM, NuTyX project shutting down
The Fedora team are looking at making a change in Fedora 35 which would allow users to have easier access to a wide range of Flatpak packages. Enabling third-party repositories will provide access to a filtered portion of the Flathub repository. "Enabling third-party repositories will now create a Flathub remote that is a filtered view of Flathub. This means that applications on Flathub that have been explicitly approved (by a new process proposed here) will be available in GNOME Software and on the flatpak command line. If the user follows following the instructions, then the filter is removed, and the user gets a full view of Flathub. Roughly speaking, the criteria for including software is a) will not cause legal or other problems for Fedora to point to b) does not overlap Fedora Flatpaks or software in Fedora that could easily be made into a Flatpak c) works reasonably well." Details can be found on the project's mailing list.
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One change to the Ubuntu ecosystem which has largely flown under the radar this year is the emerging support for RISC-V CPU architectures. RISC-V is special due to its open source license which allows for easier auditing and duplicating of its internals. Ubuntu has rolled out images for some RISC-V powered systems, including processors from SiFive. It is hoped that an open CPU architecture combined with open source operating systems will provide a more secure, more collaborative ecosystem for developers and users.
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AlmaLinux OS is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, one of several which was created following the announcement CentOS Linux would be phased out of service. The AlmaLinux OS distribution began its existence on the popular x86_64 architecture and has now become available for 64-bit ARM devices. Links to the new ARM-compatible install media can be found on the project's download page.
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The NuTyX project is in the process of shutting down. After 14 years of development it has been decided to discontinue the distribution. The project's mailing list contains the following message: "I'm going to shut down the NuTyX project. The domain name will end on November 28, 2021. I wish to thank all the people who inspire me and support me in this project. If you were a NuTyX user, I'm sure there are a lot of distributions to switch to. Don't ask me which one, I can't answer you. After almost 14 years, I guess it's time for me to remove the plug."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Porting OpenBSD security features to Linux
Importing-secure-ideas asks: Are there any efforts to bring OpenBSD security features like pledge and unveil over from OpenBSD to Linux? They seem like great ideas, but I can't find any reports on porting them to Linux.
DistroWatch answers: The pledge and unveil functions are really good ideas and a powerful way to easily place additional restrictions on programs to prevent them from damaging the system. However, the answer is basically: no. As far as I know there is no effort to duplicate this functionality on Linux. At least not in quite the same way. Which is too bad, I really like these OpenBSD features, especially unveil, and they would be useful for some Linux applications. There are some semi-similar tools such as seccomp, which is similar in concept to OpenBSD's pledge, though perhaps not as flexible.
One important thing to keep in mind when looking at security efforts like these is that Linux isn't likely to adopt them, at least not with exact copies, because Linux handles security differently than OpenBSD. GNU/Linux projects live in a different ecosystem.
OpenBSD is a complete operating system. The developers have the ability to go through the code for every utility in the base and add function calls to security methods like unveil which will hide parts of the filesystem. This makes it possible for a few developers to make a coordinated effort to have every program in the base system voluntarily give up permissions.
Linux uses a decentralized development approach. There is very little coordination between the compiler, kernel, web browser, and desktop environments. Every project in a mainstream Linux distro would need to opt-in to use features like pledge and unveil. That's thousands of separate developers all volunteering to do more work just to get the same opt-in security.
For this reason Linux security tends to assume programs are insecure and isolates them. AppArmor, SELinux, Firejail, Docker containers, and so on work under the assumption that individual programs may misbehave so there needs to be a layer the operating system can wrap around them to isolate poorly functioning code from causing damage. This approach is well suited to an environment with little coordination or control over the individual pieces.
In the OpenBSD community people are more likely to set up security features which programs in the base system can opt into, then patch each program to use the new security model. The centralized development approach allows the OpenBSD community to focus on writing programs which act correctly and do not need to be isolated or locked down. If a third-party program is suspected of bad behaviour then it is likely to be patched as-needed or replaced by something which does operate correctly.
These two different approaches to security (isolation on Linux versus correctness on OpenBSD) can be seen in a number of sub-projects in both communities. In Linux land we see programs like Qubes OS, Whonix, Linux containers, Firejail, and SELinux which all operate with the assumption some programs we run will operate in unpleasant or malicious ways and cause damage. The idea is to wall them off from the rest of the system so when they do misbehave they do not cause damage. OpenBSD developers focus on correct behaviour, good documentation, giving tools a lightweight way to opt-in to reducing their own permissions. The idea being that users will run programs which can be trusted so there isn't a reason to wall off most programs; each program is expected to behave properly or that someone will fix it so it can be trusted.
The unveil and pledge functions are very well suited to OpenBSD's model of correct behaviour, but not well suited to Linux's distributed development approach so it is unlikely we will get to see an effort to port these specific functions to the Linux kernel. There are some tools Linux developers can use to have their programs give up permissions. For example, Linux applications can reduce their permission level or lock themselves in a chroot environment. However, the common approach on Linux is to assume programs will eventually act improperly and isolate them.
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Answers to other questions can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Q4OS 3.15
The Q4OS team have announced a new release of the stable branch of their lightweight, Debian-based distribution. The Q4OS distribution is available in two editions, featuring the KDE Plasma and Trinity desktop environments. Q4OS 3.15 brings the distribution up to date with packages in Debian's Stable branch. The release announcement states: "An update to Q4OS 3 Centaurus LTS has been released. The new 3.15 Series receives the recent Debian Buster 10.10 update, updated Debian stable kernel and important security and bug fixes. This update brings along a few Q4OS specific improvements, fixes and a cumulative upgrade covering all the changes from the previous stable Q4OS 3 Centaurus release. Current users only need to perform a regular update to get all the new features. Anyone is welcome to download installation media images from the Downloads section of the Q4OS website."
KaOS 2021.06
KaOS is a desktop Linux distribution that features the latest version of the KDE desktop environment and other popular software applications that use the Qt toolkit. The latest snapshot of the distribution's rolling release is KaOS 2021.06 which offers KDE Plasma 5.22, new visual effects, and a new system monitor. "You will find Plasma 5.22 on this ISO. Highlights of this latest major version include the big new feature Adaptive Transparency: This means the panel and panel widgets will usually be pleasantly translucent, but will become entirely opaque if there are any maximized window, a transition to Plasma System Monitor from the older KSysguard as the default system monitoring app and Plasma Wayland session now supports Activities: a classic feature unique to the Plasma desktop that allows you to have completely different environments for different aspects of your computing life, other KWin Wayland improvements include the Present Windows effect. New in Plasma 5.22, System Settings opens up on a speed dial page that gives you direct access to the most commonly used settings, as well as to the ones you have accessed most." Further details are available in the project's release announcement.
Pop!_OS 21.04
Pop!_OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution featuring a custom GNOME desktop. Pop!_OS is designed to have a minimal amount of clutter on the desktop without distractions in order to allow the user to focus on work. The project's latest release, Pop!_OS 21.04, addresses new ways for the dock to work and provids trackpad gestures. "A prequel to the tangible holograms of the future, trackpad gestures give your hand full command over your workspace. Here are some swift motions to keep you navigating smoothly: Swipe four fingers right on the trackpad to open the Applications view. Swipe four fingers left to open the Workspaces view. Swipe four fingers up or down to switch to another workspace. Swipe with three fingers to switch between open windows. Additional features: Optional minimize and maximize buttons for windows have been added! Minimize is enabled by default, and maximize can be enabled in Settings. Tile windows with your mouse! Just click and drag tiled windows to rearrange them to your liking. A hint will appear to show you where it will be arranged on drop. The recovery partition can now be upgraded through the OS Upgrade & Recovery menu in Settings! The launcher's search algorithm has been updated to prioritize relevant applications for a smoother experience." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
Pop!_OS 21.04 -- Running the GNOME Shell desktop
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,507
- Total data uploaded: 38.6TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Mixing features using Bedrock
This week we talked about Bedrock Linux in our Feature Story. Bedrock is a meta-distribution which makes it possible to merge features from multiple Linux distributions into one, multi-layered operating system. This allows people to merge packages and features from different distributions without needing to dual-boot or run virtual machines.
Have you tried Bedrock? If you have, let us know which distributions you mixed together in the comments.
You can see the results of our previous poll on favourite command line shells in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Trying Bedrock Linux
| I have tried Bedrock and like it: | 60 (6%) |
| I have Bedrock and did not like it: | 15 (1%) |
| I have not used Bedrock: | 964 (93%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- Hos OS. Hos OS is an Ubuntu-based distribution which uses long-term support releases for its foundation. Hos OS features the Openbox window manager.
- Anadolu Panteri. Anadolu Panteri is a Turkish, Debian-based distribution which provides different editions for end-users, developers, and educational environments.
- NavyLinux. NavyLinux is a clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux which focuses on a minimal installation.
- JarroNegro. JarroNegro is a Mexican distribution featuring the Enlightenment user interface.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 12 July 2021. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Linux Foundation Training |
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Bedrock (by Bob on 2021-07-05 00:48:08 GMT from United States)
The poll is missing one more option: I have not tried Bedrock, but plan to in the near future.
Great review, Jesse.
2 • Bedrock (by vern on 2021-07-05 01:04:13 GMT from United States)
Bedrock sounds like a "Rube Goldberg machine". No thanks. But the review was excellent.
NuTyX shutting down is a reason to choose your distro carefully.
3 • bedrock (by pappito on 2021-07-05 01:49:31 GMT from Singapore)
I thought for a moment Rocky went retro and it took a while for both names to register in my head. I can't say I am too keen on a frankendistro that I will likely make a bigger mess of than I already do with a single distro.
quite a shame about nutyx as it's one less option. but then again, it's one less dilution.
4 • NuTyX (by Stan on 2021-07-05 02:13:01 GMT from United States)
Shutting down? They just released a new version. And their website has removed references to their demise. A change of heart?
5 • Isolation from bad programs; BSD & Linux (by Greg Zeng on 2021-07-05 02:16:36 GMT from Australia)
> " ... Individual programs may misbehave so there needs to be a layer the operating system can wrap around them to isolate poorly functioning code from causing damage. This approach is well suited to an environment with little coordination or control over the individual pieces. ... "
The Q&A section this week is the start of a much bigger puzzle.The more popular operating systems (Windows, Apple, Android) have these problems also. Their "application packages" are more used, but how do they differ from each other? In Linux, we have a very confusing set of "application packages". Traditional Linux forced users to compile from source code; a tedious & highly skilled technique (including AUR).
So then RPM, DEB, "puppy", snap, flatpak, appimage, etc. All these applications have shared problems: dependent libraries, update of parts of whole applications, sensitivity to hardware, user & usage, error recovery, etc.Then Linux has "containers" & many forms of complex virtualizations, emulators, etc.
Thank you for trying to decipher some confusion. The next step might be to translate this Linux mess, so that more people; like myself can also understand.
6 • bedrock etc. (by Adina on 2021-07-05 03:59:12 GMT from United States)
Yet another misguided solution born from the misconception that Arch has weaknesses that all other community distros don't also have.
7 • Bedrock (by Ali on 2021-07-05 04:51:32 GMT from Iran)
@Jesse
In addition to not integrating to application menu, did packages from secondary distributions follow the theme of primary desktop? I found this an issue during my test of earlier versions of Bedrock. This is also the the problem of some cross-distro package managers like Nix. Application looks ugly and there is no clear method to make them use desktop theme. I think, with spreading usage of flatpak and snap,technologies like Bedrock and Nix package manager are loosing their niche.
8 • Bedrock Linux sounds cool but... (by Bobbie Sellers on 2021-07-05 06:32:06 GMT from United States)
It is interesting I but is it ready for casual use? I rather doubt it.
If it was easy to find as a download I might even try the beta in VirtualBox
but I did not spot the .iso file or .img file in much too long an exploration
of its site reading introductory material but finding no image.
By the way I have tried Qubes but I found it confusing as I lose the
ability to multitask a bit more every day.
Better news is the fresh release of PCLinuxOS 64 2021 iso files.
But will get back to you on that.
bliss- - “Nearly any fool can use a Linux computer. Many do.” After all here I am...
9 • Flatpack, snap etc vs distro's package manager (by far2fish on 2021-07-05 07:08:33 GMT from Denmark)
Have anyone seen any poll (either on DW) or elsewhere that gauge the usage of how popular installing software as snap or flakpack are versus installing builds targeting the distro's native package manager (like apt or yum) ?
10 • Bedrock (by Jesse on 2021-07-05 10:25:13 GMT from Canada)
@7: "In addition to not integrating to application menu, did packages from secondary distributions follow the theme of primary desktop?"
Yes, if I remember correctly regular packages (those pulled from repositories) did. But I don't think Flatpaks followed the host distro's theme.
@8: "If it was easy to find as a download I might even try the beta in VirtualBox
but I did not spot the .iso file or .img file in much too long an exploration
of its site reading introductory material but finding no image."
There is no ISO or IMG file for Bedrock. As I mentioned in the review, Bedrock is set up by running a script on an existing distribution. It's not an operating system which is installed. It's a meta-distro which uses a script to "take over" an existing distro.
@9: Yes, we ran a poll on that topic. https://distrowatch.com/polls.php?poll=116
11 • Flatpack, snap etc vs distro's package manager (by Tim on 2021-07-05 12:26:54 GMT from United States)
@far2fish, that is an excellent recommendation for a poll.
As for myself, one of my hosts runs Fedora 34. Fedora seems to be moving more decidedly toward Flatpak. I prefer traditional package management and shared libraries. I think they are going to force me to choose another distro.
12 • @11 Tim: (by dragonmouth on 2021-07-05 13:15:03 GMT from United States)
What is the difference, as far as you are concerned, between Flatpack and ,rpm's? Why prefer the latter to the former? They were both developed by Red Hat, with Flatpaks having a more universal usage.
13 • Bedrock... (by Cheker on 2021-07-05 13:26:45 GMT from Portugal)
...sounds like an interesting experiment. The way you describe it makes me think of containers, except that the different strats don't sound like they're isolated per se
14 • rocking on beds (by fonz on 2021-07-05 17:31:26 GMT from Indonesia)
@1 yep, shouldve had another option to try bedrock in the near future. the review was awesome, the 3rd paragraph starting on debian > something > AUR really hit me, itd be amazing to try out all the new possibilities. modding games has been my hobby for +10 years (nowadays my kids are my hobby :D), modding systems with bedrock might be my new itch to scratch. of course playing it safe in a VM before real usage. huge kudos to the review, it disproves 'you cant teach an old dog new tricks' like a few weeks ago with magic sysrq keys...
nutyx sounds like an awesome project. after reading the release 20 review on here, allowing init diversity (or fragmentation LOL) should be held. if nutyx can do it, why cant the big boys amirite? i havent tried it personally, but i have tried LFS and failed big time. hopefully bedrock might pick it up as a starting grounds, maybe...
15 • pledge/unveil (by John on 2021-07-05 21:43:10 GMT from Canada)
I did read in LWN about something called "Landlock". That seems similar to Pledge/Unveil, but as mentioned it will probably be hard to use that everywhere. This is the article from June 17:
https://lwn.net/Articles/859908/
16 • @12 regarding flatpack etc (by far2fish on 2021-07-05 21:51:27 GMT from Denmark)
I know you asked Tim, but I will reply too on the same question.
I have admittedly never tried flatpack. My main distro is Fedora. A few months back I installed Ubuntu on another laptop and tried some software installed through snap and then the same software from apt. I don’t recall all apps I tried, but Firefox and vs code was probably among them. For the apps I tried the startup time in snap was horrible compared to the same apps when I installed using apt on the same laptop. It was not a good experience. My selection of applications might not have been representative for snap in general, but it left me a bit baffled why performance was that bad. Laptop specs i5 cpu and 16gb ram, Ubuntu desktop default install.
17 • Won't use Bedrock (by penguinx86 on 2021-07-05 22:30:34 GMT from United States)
Bedrock is a nice idea, but seems too complicated and difficult to troubleshoot if something goes wrong. I'll stick with VirtualBox and virtual machines running on my primary OS Linux Mint Xfce. If something goes wrong with a virtual machine, I can simply delete it and reinstall it without affecting my main OS.
18 • Bedrock works (by Andy Prough on 2021-07-06 03:24:40 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the detailed instructions, Jesse. I installed Devuan, then installed the hijack script for Bedrock, then installed the Void strata on top of it with "brl fetch void". That whole process of installing everything from scratch took about 15 minutes.
Then I used "sudo xbps-install okular" and "sudo xbps-install galculator" to install okular and galculator with the void strata. Both installed quickly and worked great. Void's repo has the most recent version of okular, version 21.04.2, whereas Devuan packages the much older 17.12.2 version, so when I opened it and saw that it was the Void 21.04.2 version I thought that was very cool! I'm going to need to keep trying this out, it's really quite interesting. CPU and memory usage looks the same as with native Devuan packages, so this could be incredibly useful.
19 • Missing application menu entries (by Andre on 2021-07-06 05:04:29 GMT from Canada)
I don't use Bedrock Linux, but you might be able to get your desktop environment to find all of the applications you have installed, regardless of strata, by explicitly setting the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable. For example:
export XDG_DATA_DIRS=/bedrock/strata/arch/usr/share:/bedrock/strata/ubuntu/usr/share:/usr/share
I think most desktop environments support this env var nowadays; or, at least, the ones I've tried do.
20 • More about Bedrock (by Andy Prough on 2021-07-06 13:13:40 GMT from United States)
After experimenting with it a bit, I think the killer feature is the ability to have a regular Devuan Beowulf installation with all of its stable, older software as the base, and then using "brl fetch -n myceres -r ceres devuan" to add ceres (similar to Debian unstable Sid) as a strata. Then you can install any of the newer software from the unstable ceres repo as root with "strat myceres apt install [packagename]". This way you get the stable Devuan base and the newer, unstable programs you need co-existing very nicely together.
21 • Bedrock (by Ankleface Wroughlandmire on 2021-07-06 14:14:47 GMT from Ecuador)
Thanks for the review Jesse. I've been intrigued every time you review Bedrock. For me, the fact that it doesn't automatically integrate the .desktop files for programs added from the add-on distro is a major limitation, hopefully they'll address that at some point.
22 • I might try Bedrock (by mmphosis on 2021-07-06 17:22:35 GMT from Canada)
@17 I also like the idea of Bedrock. My method is not as simple as using a VM. I multi-boot from a grub menu of OSes (and ISOs) that I can install and delete. If I had a "primary" OS it would probably be Linux Mint. If too many things go wrong with an OS, I delete it.
23 • Maybe this spagetti would be better with ice cream on top, and a pickle (by Trihexagonal on 2021-07-07 09:32:42 GMT from United States)
In all seriousness, the Bedrock idea sounds like a disaster to me. In regard to Jesse's statement:
"Bedrock Linux seeks to reverse, or at least offer an alternative, to fragmentation."
Piling different distros that have gone their own way together and adding some "glue" like the Bedrock script to bring things back together does not seem the path to making Linux whole. It sounds like the above. To me.
Like you're hungry for something but you just don't know what you're hungry for, To coin commercial. Tried vanilla lately? As a PC-BSD user I switched to "vanilla" FreeBSD, and that's what we referred to it as.
Sixteen years and 31 flavors later, BaskenRobbinsOS is no more. Vanilla is still around and so am I.
Vanilla being the same thing as what @5 referred to:
"Traditional Linux" forced users to compile from source code; a tedious & highly skilled technique (including AUR).
It's not for everybody and neither is compiling 3rd party programs from source. It is time consuming, can be tedious when the build of one program conflicts with the another and a learned skill in problem solving that only comes from experience.
A skill I struggled with to learn and taught myself while a PC-BSD user of great value looking back on how little I knew about FreeBSD at the time. To have given up and stayed with what was supposed to be easier, failure worthy of seppuku.
I used Linux years before I started using FreeBSD and with 8 laptops find a place for one based on Debian that is running right beside me as I type on my FreeBSD 12.2 box. I'm perfectly comfortable with apt-get and SystemD is not the bugbear for me it is for some. I don't want to make it something it's not and if I didn't like it the way it was I wouldn't use it.
But you are not me and your preference does not have to be mine or make you wrong because it is not. I'd rather have vanilla Yoplait yogurt to be honest.
I liked the article about Porting OpenBSD security features to Linux. I haven't used OpenBSD in 2-3 years or heard of pledge and unveil. It was informative in the comparison of the different paradigm in security and a good work in writing overall.
You are a workhorse.
24 • @10 The Snap and Flatpak Poll quoted by Jesse... (by Ghost 67 on 2021-07-07 12:55:02 GMT from United Kingdom)
Jesse, the poll you quote is from way back in DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 727 (28 August 2017). I would argue that the results would be wildly different if the same poll was taken today. Is it possible that it can be re-run so we may gauge if the uptake of Snaps and Flatpaks has improved?
25 • Bedrock for Embedded Development (by Kyle on 2021-07-07 13:10:42 GMT from United States)
I don't think I would find Bedrock Linux very useful for my personal systems, but I wonder if it could be helpful in the context of developing embedded software? Some of the software I work on for my job is built on Linux host systems. Embedded software takes the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy to an extreme, so some of the tools haven't been updated in years, sometimes over a decade. This leaves my team in an awkward position where our development software only officially supports versions of Linux distributions that have long ago lost their own official support.
If we can find (or make) Bedrock strata for some of those old distributions, we might be able to install the bare minimum libraries and utilities to run our compilers on top of modern distributions. That could reduce or even eliminate our need for different virtual machines, in addition to simply gaining access to the features in the latest releases of IDEs and other such software available in the base OS. It looks like Bedrock has some extensive documentation on adding new distributions, so it might be feasible with a bit of effort.
26 • bedrock linux opinion poll (by george on 2021-07-09 01:25:24 GMT from United States)
Wish there had been an option for "Have not used, but will try soon".
Number of Comments: 26
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