Vibe check: CentOS vs Debian vs Ubuntu? (For a server that's mostly going to run containerized workloads, most likely)
edit: Oh, editing a post with a poll resets poll results huh
To those suggesting NixOS: you really want me to do this? https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Install_NixOS_on_Hetzner_Online Really?
@fasterthanlime I can recommend Numtide's example approach to install on Hetzner Cloud. https://github.com/numtide/srvos/blob/main/nixos/hardware/hetzner-cloud/default.nix
Together with nixos-anywhere, its a painless way to install and manage NixOS.
@fasterthanlime There's a probably less bothersome way too: https://github.com/numtide/nixos-anywhere
Works great on hetzner!
@fasterthanlime Pick an immutable, container first OS! Like Fedora Cloud! There's lots of cool stuff going on there.
@JadedBlueEyes @fasterthanlime me: ooh, I've never heard of Fedora Cloud, I wonder how it relates to Fedora CoreOS?
the fedora website:
@daisy @fasterthanlime Hah yeah, that's not very good, is it?
I think the primary difference is Cloud is targeted at running in virtual machines on the... cloud, whereas CoreOS is more general - it should work just as well on bare metal and VMs. Like an immutable OS equivelant to Fedora Server.
@daisy @JadedBlueEyes @fasterthanlime "oops I accidentally copy pasted the iso and renamed it cloud. I should delete this duplicat.... wait...."
@fasterthanlime
For containerized workloads, maybe also check out Fedora CoreOS?
**EDIT:** oops I'm an idiot and someone already recommended this 😅
@fasterthanlime Debian is the safe answer. Loads of packages, should just work, security backports are generally quick enough.
Ubuntu is fine but tends to have more stuff that can go wrong in exchange for more stuff out of the box, which is a tradeoff I don't particularly like for servers. And the devil help ye if you ever want to do a release upgrade.
CentOS is alright but it's a bit of a "if you need to search for a solution for a problem you might not have much luck" job.
@fasterthanlime Ubuntu also seems fairly pointless if your stuff is all containerised. You're not going to use all those extra packages. Better to go with a fairly barebones base distro.
@gsuberland @fasterthanlime this is why I use arch
lots of up to date packages, don't have to worry about major release versions, excellent information for config and fixing things if it goes wrong
@tthbaltazar @fasterthanlime arch feels like a bit too much work for me personally; more of an enthusiast distro than a "I just want to press the button and go" job. (but then again I'm not a Linux guy)
@tthbaltazar @fasterthanlime 100% agree on the docs though. arch wiki is my go-to for pretty much anything Linux.
@gsuberland @tthbaltazar nobody is hating on arch wiki but the problem with arch is that it breaks by itself if you look away for a few months. then arch heads blame you for not reading the bbs every week. idk how they do not see the problem here.
@fasterthanlime Debian's been there since I was first able to walk, which makes me confident that it's gonna be there until at least the point I'm not able to walk on my own.
Red Hat and friends have been subject to recent changes, so if I don't need their features, I'm good with Debian.
I only go for Ubuntu for Desktop use with lots of nonfree drivers and stuff, even though I would prolly be fine with Debian too.
Also Raspbian is kinda Debian on ARM so everything good has some Debian in it ♥️