LWN: Comments on "Virtuozzo VzLinux 8.4 Now Available"

So what's the point here?

cortana — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 17:36:16 +0000

Wow, that's very neat! Thanks for the info :)

So what's the point here?

mathstuf — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 17:22:56 +0000

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Are there instructions on how such "library subtraction" to get that `_nonshared.a` library is done?

So what's the point here?

ABCD — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 15:25:47 +0000

The magic is that devtoolset (gcc-toolset in RHEL 8) installs a linker script as its "libstdc++.so" that pulls in both the libstdc++.so.6 provided by the base system and a separate libstdc++_nonshared.a that contains those symbols not provided by the base system's libstdc++.so.6.

So what's the point here?

mathstuf — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 13:36:05 +0000

It links to `libstdc++.so.6` just like it should.

So what's the point here?

cortana — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 09:07:19 +0000

Try running ldd on some of your binaries and see which libstdc++ they pull in. If none then I guess devtoolset links statically.

(I used to know the magic flags to get g++ to tell you this while it's compiling. Was it as simple as '-v' while compiling? Or is it evident in the output of 'g++ -dumpspecs'?)

So what's the point here?

cortana — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 09:02:17 +0000

I guess this is something CentOS Stream improves upon. It's now the upstream for RHEL, right? So Red Hat's sources are https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms plus branding?

The point is container focused distro

LightDot — Mon, 12 Jul 2021 08:12:20 +0000

By providing a complex out-of-tree kernel fork and associated tools. In other words, this technology doesn't exist on regular RHEL.

Imagine trivially assigning IPs, RAM, virtual swap, disk, CPU, etc. quotas, to bring up a paravirtualized VM that runs very close to the native speed of the underlying OS and hardware. Then mix in live migration too...

I'm astonished how few people know this technology has existed for decades, open sourced, free of charge and dead simple to use.

The point is container focused distro

HelloWorld — Sat, 10 Jul 2021 21:04:19 +0000

So how does it run containers better than regular RHEL?

So what's the point here?

LightDot — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 21:24:40 +0000

This news isn't really about anything AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux or CentOS related at all, it's about OpenVZ/Virtuozzo 8 finally going stable.

VzLinux is not a straight RHEL clone nor is it anything new, OpenVZ and Virtuozzo have been around for decades, underlying VzLinux for less, but still.

For those who don't know OpenVZ/Virtuozzo is an extremely powerful and versatile paravirtualization technology, many a VPS provider has been using it since the dawn of time. There is an out of tree kernel fork in the heart of the project, based on the RHEL kernel.

The point is container focused distro

tim_small — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 14:03:43 +0000

Virtuozzo (and previously the related OpenVZ) is a long running RHEL clone (10 years+), which is focussed on providing a runtime for containers. I assume it's still running a customised kernel for this purpose.

So what's the point here?

pabs — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 01:27:26 +0000

IIRC the issue is that the RH trademark is embedded in various packages, rather than any copyright license reason, perhaps RH themselves should just strip that out of most of them and then add RH branding packages from a separate RPM repo that only RH customers can access.

So what's the point here?

zdzichu — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 05:29:24 +0000

You're moving the goalposts.

So what's the point here?

pabs — Thu, 08 Jul 2021 00:19:25 +0000

The fact that you need a subscription to access them is something that should be eliminated, they should just be public like all the Debian mirrors.

So what's the point here?

sjj — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 23:56:02 +0000

If free binaries are free beer, what are source RPMs?

So what's the point here?

xose — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 20:08:23 +0000

They are listed at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_derivatives#Notable_Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux_derivatives

So what's the point here?

jccleaver — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 19:09:40 +0000

> Unfortunately, that's free as in speech, not free as in beer.

And of course, that's backwards. Should have previewed.

Free binaries are free beer, not free speech.

So what's the point here?

jccleaver — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 19:08:58 +0000

> It kinda is.

Unfortunately, that's free as in speech, not free as in beer.

Forks of the distribution are Free Software and can be re-distributed (internally or elsewhere) without license consideration beyond standard FS frameworks.
Even if RH were to make RHEL "freely downloadable", people have to evaluate the risk from not having the ability do anything with it beyond use it.

So what's the point here?

mathstuf — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 16:26:10 +0000

If you depend on EPEL packages, yes, you can end up requiring EPEL stuff. The devtoolset toolchains are set up that they'll only require the base CentOS stdlib, so you can deploy binaries built by devtoolset-9 on base CentOS. I'm not quite sure how that is done though.

So what's the point here?

tzafrir — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 15:57:27 +0000

But does this mean that the CentosX (7 or 8) package can be installed on plain CentosX, or only on CentosX + EPEL + devtools GCC10?

So what's the point here?

mbunkus — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 13:06:43 +0000

> If you're trying to develop / build someone else's code / keep up to date with compilers or whatever, it can be a nightmare, I think

I'm an OSS developer who provides packaged versions of my program for various distros, including CentOS 7, CentOS-now-AlmaLinux 8, Debian stable, a couple of Ubuntu versions. My app is a C++ app requiring at least C++ 17 and various more or less up to date libraries. If you'd guess that CentOS is the most difficult to package for, you'd be wrong. It's actually Debian Stable. The two things making porting somewhat painless that the CentOS ecosystem has going for itself that Debian doesn't is a) the EPEL and b) the "devtoolset"/"gcc-toolset" package libraries. The former provides rather up-to-date libraries while the latter provides up-to-date compilers. I'm currently compiling with gcc 10.2.1 on Alma 8, for example, the same version of gcc that the _upcoming_ Debian stable (bullseye) will likely use as well.

So what's the point here?

HelloWorld — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 12:42:38 +0000

> RH could eliminate them all by making access to binaries gratis.
It kinda is.
https://developers.redhat.com/articles/faqs-no-cost-red-h...

So what's the point here?

pabs — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 08:56:45 +0000

I wonder where all the RH engineers will work if RH ever starts losing revenue.

So what's the point here?

amacater — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 08:27:13 +0000

The large number of clones - Pink Tie, Blue Hat - at the time of Red Hat 2.1 were actively stomped on by lawyers or just folded. As explained to me in a discussion elsewhere: Scientific was like an Ubuntu Studio - lots of good extra stuff for a tiny community - and not stepping on anybody, because most people would just use Red Hat. The stream that ultimately became only CentOS was helped by Oracle's attempt to muscle in and steal the customer base: it meant that Red Hat made it more straightforward to de-brand and distinguish clones (which by this stage were down to two or three).

Princeton and IAS probably had the money and influence and expertise draw to keep their own fork, pretty much for themselves, and it's a quirk that it's still going. Scientific stopped after Red Hat 7 and suggested CentOS 8. CERN are now re-evaluating, probably somewhat painfully, and acknowledge that others in the scientific community are looking to them for leadership.

Maintaining a copy of Red Hat as a clone is tiny in terms of disk size/update frequency - a couple of TB will do it.. Maintaining any level of interest and support for users, building and maintaining the toolchain to produce updates quickly, participating in security discussions and fixing bugs very quickly: that's a lot harder. Most of the world's distribution mirrors now rest with hosting companies as much as with academia: it's quick and cheap to have a mirror in your data centre if you're Rackspace. We'll either see lots of consolidation quickly or a gradual drift away from the Red Hat ecosystem altogether, I think. If you want five years of utter stability Red Hat is fantastic for FOREX/ bank trading floors/defence. If you're trying to develop / build someone else's code / keep up to date with compilers or whatever, it can be a nightmare, I think

So what's the point here?

eru — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 07:03:08 +0000

Nothing new here, there were also a large number of RHEL clones after RHEL itself first appeared. They got mostly consolidated into CentOS and Scientific Linux (which had a niche, because of the extra software it bundled). I expect something similar to happen again.

So what's the point here?

pgeorgi — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 06:55:17 +0000

No love for https://springdale.math.ias.edu/, the spiritual successor of ScientificLinux? :-(

So what's the point here?

pabs — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 06:19:02 +0000

I think that was related to the git repo (or patch files) for RH's version of the Linux kernel, rather than RHEL binaries? Agreed re Oracle.

So what's the point here?

ssmith32 — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 06:08:24 +0000

Having trouble digging up the history, but I believe it was Oracle that ruined that particular party. Given Oracle's behavior, with open source in particular, it's appropriate to be wary of them, and avoid cooperation as a general default.

So what's the point here?

mathstuf — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 02:33:35 +0000

And certifications that RHEL's binaries meet some checklist security hurdles (FIPS or other things that care about the "color" of the bits, not just that they're exactly the same).

So what's the point here?

pabs — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 02:12:29 +0000

RH could eliminate them all by making access to binaries gratis. I doubt they would even lose much revenue, I expect most RHEL users buy it for the support and other services like live patching.

So what's the point here?

HelloWorld — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 23:16:17 +0000

How many RHEL clones do we have at this point? AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux and now this thing. Seems like a colossal waste of time.