this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Hit the ground running deploying...pretty much anything.

Was running game servers on my Windows PC through Docker and they were super easy to set up. I got a new PC and decided to repurpose my old computer into an Ubuntu server to get some experience with Unix. I have only been more frustrated once in my entire life. Sure, once things are set up on Linux they are really powerful, but the barrier to entry is so absurdly high and running anything "out of the box" is literally impossible by design.

[–] WhyJiffie 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's very weird as with docker on windows you technically run your containers in a linux vm, and besides that, in my experience windows is not nearly stable enough to be useful for running services.
All while I have been deploying selfhosted services for myself without problems on Linux for years. My only problem has been the constantly overloaded system, but that's no surprise when you run heavy services on the 10+ year old portable hard drive system disk. Windows would only perform worse in that environment.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Yeah.... this feels like a very bad example. I am honestly curious as to specifics here, because Ubuntu setup is pretty dead simple with the graphical installer. And like you said docker is native linux.

Saying running anything out of the box is "impossible by design" on Ubuntu is objectively wrong frankly. Maybe you could argue they haven't succeeded in their goal of being super out of the box friendly, not sure I'd agree but at least you'd have leg to stand on.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Erm I'll politely disagree there. Linux is just built for it. No extra layer like Windows. Docker and Linux are besties

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Don't get me wrong - I know that they are, and I know that Linux is superior for running docker containers. The thing is that Windows handles all the permissions for you. An average Joe can get a docker container up and running on Windows. You need significantly more Linux-specific knowledge to get a container running on Linux, and the advice given by the community is often cryptic for beginners.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I feel your pain, ugh. Setting up certain types of software can be a pain in the ass because there's almost always dependencies that need to be set up first; in addition, it's not always clear what you're supposed to install or how to do it the right way. A lot of Linux-related documentation out there isn't geared towards beginners and leaves out a lot of important explanatory and contextual information, which just makes it more frustrating. Unnecessarily, in my opinion.

However, I gotta mention that Ubuntu - though widely used - is sorta notorious for being user unfriendly and isn't always the most appropriate choice for a beginner Linux user. If anyone reading this is thinking about trying Linux for the first time, I would consider Linux Mint. It's a Linux distro that is actually based on Ubuntu (which is based on Debian), but it works "out of the box" better than most and should be a positive experience for most users. It's pretty solid.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Ubuntu is notoriously user unfriendly???

That's honestly super confusing to me. Not just experientially from using Ubuntu but also just I've never heard it described that way. It's definitely near the top of list of out-of-box friendly distros.

Graphical installer. Full App Store UI. Desktop versions that come with lots of common software. It's hard to get much simpler than that.

Truly, if anything, I would consider desktop Ubuntu to be somewhat power user unfriendly.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ubuntu I would say is a terrible desktop OS full stop, and all the derivatives also, as well as Debian. They are fine for a server where someone wants stability of package change above all else, but as a desktop we should NOT be pushing new users to these distros full of outdated software when easier to use rolling distros are available, where adding anything new isn't adding a repo that is almost certainly going to break things on an OS update.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You realise Debian is the base distribution?

Ubuntu takes 6 monthly cuts from Debian Testing, adds some in house stuff puts them through QA and performs a release.

Linux Mint is produced by Cinnamon devs, similar to KDE Neon. They take the last Ubuntu LTS, remove many of the in house additions, add the latest Cinnamon desktop and release.

Cinnamon got upstreamed into Debian to make the process easier.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Yes, that is why I included Debian and the Ubuntu spins (Mint/etc.). They all run outdated software, and I don't think in 2024 they are a suitable desktop OS for someone new coming to Linux. They were fine back in the day when things were not moving as fast, but now, well running one of them is a disservice to the user IMHO. Unless your only using your system to make spreadsheets using an outdated version of LibreOffice and don't mind that your 6+ months behind the rest of the world.

I think they certainly have a place in the server world, but as a desktop new users should be looking at the EndeavourOS, CachyOS, Fedora, Nobara, Ultramarine, or even SUSE Tumbleweed.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

Do you not know that mint is Ubuntu based?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

The person is correct in this isn't a Linux problem, but relates to your experience.

Windows worked by giving everyone full permissions and opening every port. While Microsoft has tried to roll that back the administration effort goes into restricting access.

Linux works on the opposite principle, you have to learn how to grant access to users and expose ports.

You would have to learn this mental switch no matter what Linux task your trying to learn

Dockers guide to setting up a headless docker is copy/paste. You can install Docker Desktop on Linux and the effort is identical to windows. The only missing step is

sudo usermod -aG docker $user

To ensure your user can access the docker host as a local user.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What happened the one time you were more frustrated?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Playing Final Fantasy XIII. That legitimately made me cry with how frustrating that game was to play.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Ah ok. Never played it, probably won't bother! :-)

[–] [email protected] -5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

That's a letter U problem. I can administer Linux a bajillion times easier than windows, because I do it for a living, and haven't touched MS since Server 2010. Also Docker in Windows is LOL. You're leveraging Linux to shit on Linux. Lets do that all in IIS and see how you feel.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Pointing out that you find it easy because you do it for a living isn't a very good counter to their point - most people do other things besides Linux for a living

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

He's.... not wrong though. I mean look, deploying things is somewhat inherently the task of professionals and enthusiasts. To say that deploying things on Windows is easier than Linux is going to be really really hard to defend. Not to even mention the docker layer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I can run a Linux docker container on Windows and it just works. When I run it on Linux it is constant permission and access issues.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I guess I can’t deny your experience is your experience, but again if you’re running Docker on Windows, Windows is just running a Linux VM or WSL to do this. And I can assure you that any serious person running containerized workloads for production type deployments will be doing this on a Linux host.

Docker has pretty good docs for installation on the major Linux distros, so without more info I can’t really say much else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Permissions on Windows are notoriously insecure. By default, literally everything is executable in Windows. Docker is very much the same (insecure by default; in Windows).

Your permissions problems in Linux are a feature, not a bug. You just didn't understand what you were doing when you tried to get it set up. Otherwise you wouldn't be complaining about permissions errors. That's the very definition of complaining about your own ignorance.

I get that the point of this thread is something along the lines of, "running Docker images is a breeze" but I think a more relevant point would be, "Docker images run better" (in Linux).

Docker images will run much faster and more efficiently in Linux. It's just how it was meant to work. WSL doesn't work like WINE: it's actually an emulator and will always be slower than native Linux.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

As you said, I am perfectly aware that in an ideal world security would be on lockdown. How it behaves on Linux is how it SHOULD work. That doesn't change the main point that you can't hit the ground running with Docker containers in Linux.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

I used Windows from 95 onward. Docker on Windows is second class compared to running on Linux.

That being said, I don't think it's that people cannot learn to use something like Ubuntu, it's that if they don't need to, they won't.

Good enough, is fine for the vast majority of folks. And I think Windows 11 proves that.

Like I had to learn OSX for my work computer, which I ended up loving. But that took me a week or so to get the hang of.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah, I started working for a company with a lot of Windows servers two years ago and I still can't wrap my brain around them. I've been a Linux sysadmin/sysarchitect for 20+ years and I'm still completely lost how to get Windows to much of anything. I usually don't have to do much on those servers, but when I do its StackOverflow that's really administering them. It's because I lack foundational knowledge about windows and also because I'm fine not having that knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

IIS is not the same as Docker. Sounds to me you are shitting on IIS for the sake of trying to prove a point I wasn't trying to make.

This goes into my next point. Linux users are toxic as hell. They are elitist snobs who shit on newbies because they have years of experience.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 7 months ago

Hold on, did you just low-key state that running Linux docker containers on Windows ends up giving you the best of both worlds? Run Linux server software in docker containers, run client software natively on Windows?