What Linux Distro do the Linux users of GH use?

[TacticalCoder]

removing stuff is never as clean as never having been installed in the first place.

I agree. When I install a new Linux system I always install a minimal Debian system and work from there. If it's for my workstation, I always install it text-only first and then add X etc. First thing I do is to see what services are running and removes everything that's not needed. And, indeed, I never ever allow to SSH into my workstation (which is being NAT anyway, without any port forwarding), so there's no sshd runing on my workstation. Of course I do SSH out, all the time, from my workstation to my dedicated servers (also running Debian and who also all started as a minimal install).

Also by default the firewall is rejecting everything: blacklisting (allowing everything by default and then trying to block bad things) can never be as clean as whitelisting (disabling everything and only letting through what's specifically allowed).

[iri]

Plot twist: TacticalCoder is actually Gasche.

[davkol]

Nobody said "people using desktop environments are noobs".

Please, reread vivalarevolución's post.

I only pointed out the difference between window managers and desktop environments, which he apparently missed.

More

For any advanced user mounting/unmounting drives/peripherals is trivially done from the command line (I've got a hard time remembering when, if worse came to worse, a dmesg / lsblk / fdisk / mount (with the correct parameters) / umount didn't work.

Or you can do none of it and have it just work.

Regarding screen management: if anything compared to 20 years ago configuring screens from the command line, while running X (oh, yup, I also always boot my workstation in text mode first, then only startx), has become much easier. You could, say, use xrandr, choose your GPU, choose your output (HDMI, whatever...), choose your resolution and you're done.

Or you can do none of it and have it just work.

Ditto for screen rotation synchronized with Wacom digitizer. Of course I could write a script, but why?

And what does it do that I couldn't do by going the Un*x-way and piping commands to search ("don't index, search") that one user account? With 16 GB of RAM (soon 32 or 64) and now M.2 SSDs with crazy fast read speeds, it's not as if local searching was any slow.

Semantic desktop.

As for the shortcuts: I've got my HHKB JP configured so that one of the "switch to whatever japanese characters" key acts as an "hyper" key and that one key is dedicated to the WM's shortcuts and to the WM's shortcuts only, which is ultra-convenient. Sure it took some time to configure my VM's shortcuts and my apps' shortcuts, but it's something you do once and then go with for years (to give an idea: I think my workstation, also always doing some number crunching on two cores, is at 6 months uptime right now).

A window manager doesn't, for example, address global shortcuts for a multimedia player… Sure you can (ad absurdum) figure out configuration for mdp… or have it work out of the box in a desktop environment.

edit: formatting

[TacticalCoder]

I'm not saying it's not convenient in your case (I haven't used a Wacom device since 20 years, for example). All I'm saying is I'm not missing anything by not having icons and global shortcuts etc.

Now of course my workstation is really just that: a workstation. I don't even have speakers connected to the mobo's audio output. (I do have a cool standalone stereo setup to listen to music when I work).

Regarding Linux configuration and scripts: configuration is typically something I only do when I buy a new Linux machine and then I'm pretty much done with it.

It seems like you're more after some OS-X'ish like experience: icons, spotlight (indexing), multimedia center, etc. in addition to work-related stuff. I'm just after work-related stuff and browsing. So YMMV.

[iri]

I'm not saying it's not convenient in your case (I haven't used a Wacom device since 20 years, for example). All I'm saying is I'm not missing anything by not having icons and global shortcuts etc.

Now of course my workstation is really just that: a workstation. I don't even have speakers connected to the mobo's audio output. (I do have a cool standalone stereo setup to listen to music when I work).

Regarding Linux configuration and scripts: configuration is typically something I only do when I buy a new Linux machine and then I'm pretty much done with it.

It seems like you're more after some OS-X'ish like experience: icons, spotlight (indexing), multimedia center, etc. in addition to work-related stuff. I'm just after work-related stuff and browsing. So YMMV.

Don't you use a computer at home?

[davkol]

It has little to do with "work" anyway. For example, I like semantic desktop for going back to papers, because it works with extra metadata.

The point is that some tasks are automated out of the box.

[davkol]

BTW for newbies, Linux Journey is a very nice new educational website. It's been recently announced in /r/linux and the author is accepting corrections/suggestions.

[KRKS]

And it needs a lot of them, In just the first chapter I found a lot of hilarious mistakes, like claiming Mint doesn't have proprietary software.

[sth]

And it needs a lot of them, In just the first chapter I found a lot of hilarious mistakes, like claiming Mint doesn't have proprietary software.

did you lol

[xtrafrood]

BTW for newbies, Linux Journey is a very nice new educational website. It's been recently announced in /r/linux and the author is accepting corrections/suggestions.

I used and abused Linux Mint and a few other distros; and learned a few things but I know there is so much more to learn. Thanks for the link

[SBJ]

BTW for newbies, Linux Journey is a very nice new educational website. It's been recently announced in /r/linux and the author is accepting corrections/suggestions.

Thank you so much for this. The Text-Fu part seems like it would be awesome.

[KRKS]

did you lol

More like a mix of lols, facepalms and straight up WATs

[appleonama]

none linux is for baddies

[vivalarevolución]

Nobody said "people using desktop environments are noobs".

Please, reread vivalarevolución's post.

I only pointed out the difference between window managers and desktop environments, which he apparently missed.

More

For any advanced user mounting/unmounting drives/peripherals is trivially done from the command line (I've got a hard time remembering when, if worse came to worse, a dmesg / lsblk / fdisk / mount (with the correct parameters) / umount didn't work.

Or you can do none of it and have it just work.

Regarding screen management: if anything compared to 20 years ago configuring screens from the command line, while running X (oh, yup, I also always boot my workstation in text mode first, then only startx), has become much easier. You could, say, use xrandr, choose your GPU, choose your output (HDMI, whatever...), choose your resolution and you're done.

Or you can do none of it and have it just work.

Ditto for screen rotation synchronized with Wacom digitizer. Of course I could write a script, but why?

And what does it do that I couldn't do by going the Un*x-way and piping commands to search ("don't index, search") that one user account? With 16 GB of RAM (soon 32 or 64) and now M.2 SSDs with crazy fast read speeds, it's not as if local searching was any slow.

Semantic desktop.

As for the shortcuts: I've got my HHKB JP configured so that one of the "switch to whatever japanese characters" key acts as an "hyper" key and that one key is dedicated to the WM's shortcuts and to the WM's shortcuts only, which is ultra-convenient. Sure it took some time to configure my VM's shortcuts and my apps' shortcuts, but it's something you do once and then go with for years (to give an idea: I think my workstation, also always doing some number crunching on two cores, is at 6 months uptime right now).

A window manager doesn't, for example, address global shortcuts for a multimedia player… Sure you can (ad absurdum) figure out configuration for mdp… or have it work out of the box in a desktop environment.

edit: formatting

Please don't reread my post, I never claimed to know what I'm talking about, I just talk.

[livingspeedbump]

retrochick just gave me 2 old mac laptops so I have even more computers to play around with linux on.

I used to use Mint heavily, but have been using Arch the most recently, but I've really enjoyed having another computer with Mint on it again.

[mike52787]

I have mint on my thinkpad, But I cant use anything but win10 on my desktop.

[jal]

Both my personal and my work laptops are OS X, but my primary home machine is vanilla Debian.  When running X on it, I use the Afterstep window manager, but a lot of the time I don't bother with a GUI. (I'm a systems engineer, and old.) That machine also runs a Win7 VM that I use to run CAD software, so I guess in a twisted way my primary Linux desktop on that machine is Windows. But most of the time when not designing, the command line is just more natural to me.

My home storage server runs FreeBSD, and most of the rest of my machines end up running whatever's best for what I'm playing with - right now, four of them are Centos because until recently, RHEL-flavored distros were required for oVirt, which I'm writing some software against. But Red Hat's approach to things makes me sad in my special angry place, so I avoid it whenever possible.

At work, we run a mix of Debian, Ubuntu and Centos, and OpenBSD on select systems.

For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

[livingspeedbump]

For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

I prefer tmux over screen, but admittedly haven't really used screen nearly as much. Definitely worth learning for sure though, especially since linux is all about the command line 

[user 18]

For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

I prefer tmux over screen, but admittedly haven't really used screen nearly as much. Definitely worth learning for sure though, especially since linux is all about the command line 

I haven't used tmux, but I have used screen. I enjoy it for remote access machines, but when I'm doing local access, I find it much more comfortable to just pop open X and use a few terminal emulators.

[iLLucionist]

For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

I prefer tmux over screen, but admittedly haven't really used screen nearly as much. Definitely worth learning for sure though, especially since linux is all about the command line 

People typically prefer screen, as it has more features. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be the case that screen only did vertical splits, not horizontal (or the other way around).

Another cool feature of tmux – but I'm not entirely sure whether this is a unique feature of tmux – is that you can suspend sessions (with plugins or core, not sure). So you could actually shut down your computer, reboot, and continue where you left. I find that very handy for long stretches of coding.

[iLLucionist]

For those looking to become more proficient at the command line, I highly recommend taking the time to learn how to use `tmux`. Or `screen`, if for some reason you're stuck with that. It will confuse you at first, but then it stops being confusing, and your life at the command line will be vastly improved.

As a matter of fact, tmux made me cringe less on OS X as tmux basically provides me with a "tiled window manager" for the console. So I miss i3 less on my OS X machine now.

[livingspeedbump]

Another cool feature of tmux – but I'm not entirely sure whether this is a unique feature of tmux – is that you can suspend sessions (with plugins or core, not sure). So you could actually shut down your computer, reboot, and continue where you left. I find that very handy for long stretches of coding.

That was one of the main reasons i used tmux. I found it first, it worked well for me, so i never really looked into other options.

[jal]

People typically prefer screen, as it has more features. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be the case that screen only did vertical splits, not horizontal (or the other way around).

Another cool feature of tmux – but I'm not entirely sure whether this is a unique feature of tmux – is that you can suspend sessions (with plugins or core, not sure). So you could actually shut down your computer, reboot, and continue where you left. I find that very handy for long stretches of coding.

I think it really doesn't matter which one you choose - they both do the job. I switched to tmux probably six years ago;  there was this weird proprietary app (for a client's data capture board) that I had to work with that did unspeakable, criminal things to the terminal. screen couldn't deal with it; tmux could, sort of. Another, minor benefit for those who use OS X: iTerm2 integrates with tmux in a kind of interesting way.

And keeping sessions live when you're away is one of the most important tricks they offer, IMHO. I usually only restart sessions when the host on which they're running reboots. It is like my workshop - everything stays the way I left it. Actually, better - making my workshop that way required some, ah, operant conditioning of the other plains apes in my home.

[rowdy]

We've recently started using CoreOS on our cluster at work, mainly to host Docker containers.

Interesting update policy - the OS is stored on one of two boot partitions, and is updated as a single unit, then the machine reboots into the partition just updated.  If something breaks you can just reboot it in the old partition.

We have a 3 node cluster for testing purposes, the 3 nodes were updated 3 days apart, and services restarted automatically.

Neat

[iLLucionist]

People typically prefer screen, as it has more features. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be the case that screen only did vertical splits, not horizontal (or the other way around).

Another cool feature of tmux – but I'm not entirely sure whether this is a unique feature of tmux – is that you can suspend sessions (with plugins or core, not sure). So you could actually shut down your computer, reboot, and continue where you left. I find that very handy for long stretches of coding.

I think it really doesn't matter which one you choose - they both do the job. I switched to tmux probably six years ago;  there was this weird proprietary app (for a client's data capture board) that I had to work with that did unspeakable, criminal things to the terminal. screen couldn't deal with it; tmux could, sort of. Another, minor benefit for those who use OS X: iTerm2 integrates with tmux in a kind of interesting way.

And keeping sessions live when you're away is one of the most important tricks they offer, IMHO. I usually only restart sessions when the host on which they're running reboots. It is like my workshop - everything stays the way I left it. Actually, better - making my workshop that way required some, ah, operant conditioning of the other plains apes in my home.

Interesting. Personally, I try to keep my software purist and to avoid things like iterm speaking to tmux. Probably some superstition, but I'm always afraid that when tmux or iterm changes its interface, the other will broke and I'm stuck with my broken workflow.

[jal]

Another, minor benefit for those who use OS X: iTerm2 integrates with tmux in a kind of interesting way.

Interesting. Personally, I try to keep my software purist and to avoid things like iterm speaking to tmux. Probably some superstition, but I'm always afraid that when tmux or iterm changes its interface, the other will broke and I'm stuck with my broken workflow.

As far as the iTerm2 features, I don't actually use them myself. Neat, but in conflict with my muscle memory. I only mentioned it because it is nifty.

I understand the "keep it simple" impulse completely - I do systems for a living. On the other hand, everything in software is accretive. Your remote session is already balanced on top of init, some variant of getty, whatever bull**** the Systemd authors think needs to get in your way this week, your shell, etc.  Its turtles all the way down.

I don't have a rule for things like this; when the worst outcome is me being annoyed with my shell, I'm pretty quick to experiment, at least when I'm bored. Very different than things I write for work.

I seriously doubt you have much to fear with tmux changing radically - it is pretty mature, and the legions of pitchfork-wielding graybeards who would rise up against any major incompatible change is a pretty good insurance - there'd be a fork before most folks noticed the controversy. Screen is much older and even less likely to change. iTerm is different, but the author seems to have good instincts.

But again, I completely understand that bit of conservatism. And again, systemd comes to mind... I still have to fight with that particular exercise in narcissism occasionally, and those %*$&s are apparently intent on finding exciting new ways to break things until their fingers stop working: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=825394.

[vyshane]

We've recently started using CoreOS on our cluster at work, mainly to host Docker containers.

Interesting update policy - the OS is stored on one of two boot partitions, and is updated as a single unit, then the machine reboots into the partition just updated.  If something breaks you can just reboot it in the old partition.

We have a 3 node cluster for testing purposes, the 3 nodes were updated 3 days apart, and services restarted automatically.

Neat

What are you using for container orchestration?

[rowdy]

We've recently started using CoreOS on our cluster at work, mainly to host Docker containers.

Interesting update policy - the OS is stored on one of two boot partitions, and is updated as a single unit, then the machine reboots into the partition just updated.  If something breaks you can just reboot it in the old partition.

We have a 3 node cluster for testing purposes, the 3 nodes were updated 3 days apart, and services restarted automatically.

Neat

What are you using for container orchestration?

Um, still a bit new to Docker terminology, but if I understand the question correctly fleet on CoreOS with etcd2 as the distributed data store.

Looked briefly at Docker Swarm, but it was still marked as "experimental" or something when I started, so I moved on to other things.  Maybe time to look at it again.

[vyshane]

We've recently started using CoreOS on our cluster at work, mainly to host Docker containers.

Interesting update policy - the OS is stored on one of two boot partitions, and is updated as a single unit, then the machine reboots into the partition just updated.  If something breaks you can just reboot it in the old partition.

We have a 3 node cluster for testing purposes, the 3 nodes were updated 3 days apart, and services restarted automatically.

Neat

What are you using for container orchestration?

Um, still a bit new to Docker terminology, but if I understand the question correctly fleet on CoreOS with etcd2 as the distributed data store.

Looked briefly at Docker Swarm, but it was still marked as "experimental" or something when I started, so I moved on to other things.  Maybe time to look at it again.

I usually recommend Kubernetes. It's Google's second stab at this (the first one being Borg), and the result is a level of polish and maturity that belies the age of the project. CoreOS decided to join the project instead of building their own solution. Since you're already using CoreOS, check out coreos-kubernetes.

[nephiel]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

[vyshane]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

You should be able to install the Docker engine on your favourite distro. Alternatively, you can try it out via Docker Machine.

[jal]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

I don't know RancherOS, other than reading about it some. But the problem is that a lot of the management and orchestration tools assume systemd is your init. Oracle Linux (another canker sore on the face of Linux) is the only distro I know of that provides/provided(? last time I looked was 6.5) tools out of the box to manage Docker without it.

If you're comfortable rolling your own, there's nothing that intrinsically ties Docker to systemd, but there would be a fair amount of work involved in building out all the infrastructure. Still, basic functionality should be fairly straightforward.

[rowdy]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

[SBJ]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

[rowdy]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

[SBJ]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

That's awesome. I really should download centOS or coreOS and fiddle around with those, maybe make some virtual environments here at home for a start until I get the hang of it.
This seems to have given me yet another project for my home server.
Thanks for this.

[rowdy]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

That's awesome. I really should download centOS or coreOS and fiddle around with those, maybe make some virtual environments here at home for a start until I get the hang of it.
This seems to have given me yet another project for my home server.
Thanks for this.

Just to throw something else in the mix - technically we're running CoreOS inside XenServer on two physical servers.

I was nearly going to run XenServer at home, but decided against it.  I don't really do that much experimentation at home any more, and it was just adding another layer of maintenance to a server that I barely have time to maintain already.

[xtrafrood]

I caved and installed Debian 8.5/Gnome; my god, it just works.

[SBJ]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

That's awesome. I really should download centOS or coreOS and fiddle around with those, maybe make some virtual environments here at home for a start until I get the hang of it.
This seems to have given me yet another project for my home server.
Thanks for this.

Just to throw something else in the mix - technically we're running CoreOS inside XenServer on two physical servers.

I was nearly going to run XenServer at home, but decided against it.  I don't really do that much experimentation at home any more, and it was just adding another layer of maintenance to a server that I barely have time to maintain already.

XenServer seems like that would be a worthy project for now then. Thanks for the tip.

[jal]

Just to throw something else in the mix - technically we're running CoreOS inside XenServer on two physical servers.

I was nearly going to run XenServer at home, but decided against it.  I don't really do that much experimentation at home any more, and it was just adding another layer of maintenance to a server that I barely have time to maintain already.

I find it easier to deal with virtualized systems. Especially Windows - hate managing Windows systems. (Not trying to bash, really; I just don't use it much.) So I built out my Win VM the way I wanted (basically, as soon as I got VGA passthrough working and the things I use installed) and saved a copy of the machine. When Windows inevitably breaks, I just revert it to the saved copy.

[sean]

I caved and installed Debian 8.5/Gnome; my god, it just works.

That's Debian for you! 

[smknjoe]

I caved and installed Debian 8.5/Gnome; my god, it just works.

Yep

[lancre]

I use Xubuntu in Virtualbox on Windows. Every 6 months or so I think to myself: this is ridiculous, why am I not just using Linux natively, then I get rid of Windows and install Linux, and then after a month I remember, some specific games don't run in Linux (e.g. Endless Legend, Diablo 3) and the ones that do are ports that don't play very nicely with my graphics card (e.g. Civ 5)... so then I go back and install Windows again  )

I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

[fohat.digs]

Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

This is the really bad part, and it is mostly Windows' fault.

If you use 2 hard drives, with a different OS on each, you can just tap into BIOS at boot and use the other boot drive.

[smknjoe]

I'm too anally retentive to dual boot. Two splash screens? Seeing different partitions / discs / home folders? It feels messy.

This about the 1000th time I've seen this post and I just don't get it...at all. Is this something spread around on Reddit or in gamer circles? It's not 2003 anymore. There are several free or cheap virtualization options out there. There is almost no reason to dual, triple, quad boot anything. Run a VM - done.

You also don't have to manually set partitions.

[ramnes]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

Wow, that's pretty incredible to read that, because a very similar thing happened to us.

My company switched from Windows servers to Gentoo servers after my CTO, who was just an intern at that time, tried to implement a service to handle email bounces.
It was a PITA on MS, and so easy on Gentoo (patches on Gentoo are awesome), that the company decided to mostly abandon MS servers after that show of strength.

That was something like ten years ago, and nowadays most of our servers are running Gentoo, as well as every dev/ops computer.

[rowdy]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

Wow, that's pretty incredible to read that, because a very similar thing happened to us.

My company switched from Windows servers to Gentoo servers after my CTO, who was just an intern at that time, tried to implement a service to handle email bounces.
It was a PITA on MS, and so easy on Gentoo (patches on Gentoo are awesome), that the company decided to mostly abandon MS servers after that show of strength.

That was something like ten years ago, and nowadays most of our servers are running Gentoo, as well as every dev/ops computer.

Most of our workstations are still Windows-based, as our main applications are Windows-based.

But the next version is written in Java, and more than half the group are running Linux or OSX now (with Windows in a VM for legacy support as required).

[SBJ]

I'd like to try Docker and see what the deal is with this "containers" thing. But it seems pretty much all relevant distros, CoreOS included, run systemd, and I'd rather not. Any thoughts on RancherOS?

With CoreOS I've found that you don't interact with it much.

Configuration is handled through a "cloud-config" file, which is a plain text file read at boot time that configures everything, including network interfaces and services.

Thereafter CoreOS just runs.

It does integrate fleet with systemd to manage Docker containers across CoreOS clusters, which it seems to do really well.

Frick that seems smart. We could use that at my job, but they won't ever let me start integrating Linux into their work environment.

We were all Windows many years ago, and really struggling with a Windows email server (and dialup internet connection).  On my own initiative I claimed an old laptop, downloaded the floppies for Slackware and installed it.  Configured an email server, added a few users, and showed it as proof of concept.  It was received sufficiently well that I was given an old PC, moderate configuration for the day, and allowed to install Linux on it for use in the office.  Since then our email and an increasing number of services have been handled by Linux servers.

We dabbled with FreeBSD for a little while, but the hardware support was lacking for the weird hardware we always seem to buy.

Now we have two Windows servers - one for a client to use as an integration test server and one for MSSQL, and everything else runs under some distro of Linux (mostly Oracle Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu or CoreOS).

Wow, that's pretty incredible to read that, because a very similar thing happened to us.

My company switched from Windows servers to Gentoo servers after my CTO, who was just an intern at that time, tried to implement a service to handle email bounces.
It was a PITA on MS, and so easy on Gentoo (patches on Gentoo are awesome), that the company decided to mostly abandon MS servers after that show of strength.

That was something like ten years ago, and nowadays most of our servers are running Gentoo, as well as every dev/ops computer.

It would be amazing if I could get some Linux into our work environments because I just know it'd run better than it does at the moment.
They outsourced it to another company, which IMO sucks because we don't know **** about how they set it up really.
But it's all being managed offsite now so I doubt I'll ever get to work in a linux server environment. I would love that though.

[smknjoe]

I doubt I'll ever get to work in a linux server environment. I would love that though.

Linux servers will run great with a single core and 512MB RAM if you just want to experiment. Set up a virtual cluster on your laptop or workstation.

[SBJ]

I doubt I'll ever get to work in a linux server environment. I would love that though.

Linux servers will run great with a single core and 512MB RAM if you just want to experiment. Set up a virtual cluster on your laptop or workstation.

I've got a server at home I'm thinking about doing that to.
I get windows licenses from work so shouldn't be a problem to set up a few test environments.