
Fedora CoreOS, Red Hat CoreOS, and the future of Container Linux - KenanSulayman
https://coreos.com/blog/fedora-coreos-red-hat-coreos-and-future-container-linux
======
hardwaresofton
This is exactly what I thought would happen when I switched off of CoreOS
earlier this year. I recently switched back[0] since according to their blog
post[1] Container Linux would live and not be replaced by their Atomic
project... I thought I was a fool for overreacting.

I don't want OpenShift, it looks like a bloated clusterfuck. I don't want
Atomic either -- Container Linux had all the pieces I needed and not much
else, along with innovation just where it was needed (the update engine).

It might not mean much to Red Hat in the economical sense right now but Red
Hat has gotten a red strike in my book from this. I won't forget. Corporate
double speak/renegging on acqui-hired goodwill normally doesn't get me so
riled up but man if my jimmies aren't rustled right now.

What does everyone else use for their server distros? Is debian the way to go?
Ubuntu seems bloated but maybe I just don't know enough about the fat that is
cut out of Ubuntu Server? CentOS and Fedora are stable but they seem like they
update too slowly, is my assumption wrong?

[EDIT] - This post is likely an overreaction (again?) -- as pointed out by
others the linked thread is from May 2018 -- so my reaction is very much
delayed. If I had seen this thread when I made my decision to switch back to
Container Linux, I wouldn't have.

I'll likely be moving to flatcar linux[2].

[0]: [https://vadosware.io/post/yet-another-cluster-reinstall-
back...](https://vadosware.io/post/yet-another-cluster-reinstall-back-to-
container-linux/)

[1]: [https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-
acqui...](https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-acquire-
coreos-expanding-its-kubernetes-and-containers-leadership)

[2]: [https://www.flatcar-linux.org/](https://www.flatcar-linux.org/)

~~~
supernovae
I happily use Ubuntu on a few thousand servers running 10s of thousands of
containers. We're a polyglot shop with lots of java and lots of go/node and my
comfort level with ubuntu is high.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Thanks so much for sharing -- I think I'm going to give Ubuntu Server a try --
Canonical has done so much for open source (as noted by the other comment) and
a bunch of innovation lately -- LXD is something I've actually wanted to play
with as well as a virtualization option, which I actually failed to set up on
Container Linux[0]. I swear I'm not trying to blog-spam, I just legitimately
have been dealing with this stuff lately and have been effectively swimming
upstream by not using Ubuntu -- looks like I need to stop.

I was mainly worried I'd be spending time downloading noveau/radeon drivers
and associated packages on a server with no attached GPUs. I've been leaning
towards languages that compile fat binaries (and running with docker
regardless), so this is why I'm a little wary of Ubuntu bringing too much to
the table. Also, it's been a long time since I ran Ubuntu on a personal
machine, I am still a little worried about the risky the dist-upgrade process
can be.

Basically all I feel I need is ufw, docker, ssh and was worried that Ubuntu
brings too much along for the ride.

[0]: [https://vadosware.io/post/trying-and-failing-to-get-lxd-
runn...](https://vadosware.io/post/trying-and-failing-to-get-lxd-running-on-
container-linux/)

~~~
kikoreis
Server is based on a very minimal seed. There are no graphics drivers or
anything X or desktop related. The seed is ultimately very close to what a
cloud instance of Ubuntu will include if you want to give it a spin.

------
aberoham
If you have a deployed fleet of CoreOS instances, FlatCar[1] looks like a
viable alternative. This article from NewStack gets into the details.

[1] [https://www.flatcar-linux.org/](https://www.flatcar-linux.org/) [2]
[https://thenewstack.io/flatcar-linux-the-coreos-operating-
sy...](https://thenewstack.io/flatcar-linux-the-coreos-operating-system-lives-
on-beyond-red-hat/)

~~~
lima
Maintaining an operating system is a massive undertaking. Can Kinvolk
guarantee that they will support the distro after Red Hat stops working on it?

~~~
blixtra
That's a very valid question and one we also asked ourselves before taking on
the task. There are three main considerations that made us feel this is
doable. Firstly, Flatcar is a minimal Linux distro, with more effort made to
reduce the number of packages rather than expand. Secondly, Flatcar has not
only Container Linux as an upstream, but also Gentoo, which is also a common
upstream for Chrome OS and Container-optimized Linux, so well tended to.
Thirdly, the technologies (kernel, systemd, containers, low-level Linux
userspace) are our core focus as a company. These three considerations are
what led us to feel confident in picking up the project and have the
motivation to do so.

The way I personally see it, if you were ok with using an OS from a team of
veteran Linux/open-source contributors in 2013 you should be ok with using one
from a team of veteran Linux/open-source contributors in 2018. But this time
it's from a team that does not take venture funding.

Lastly, it is telling that the ppl that have the most confidence in us pulling
this off are the ppl we've worked with as clients or through open source
collaborations. We're happy to start there and prove ourselves along the way
to other.

~~~
lima
Thank you for your response!

I wish you the best of luck, choice is important for the ecosystem.

------
davidmr
In general, I'm pretty happy about this. The more I used Atomic Host, the more
I liked it. While it was a pretty dramatic departure from Fedora's dnf/rpm
world, I really like how rpm-ostree handled the Atomic update/rollback stuff.
I thought it was a nice middle ground between a traditional Linux distro and
Container Linux's "just slap a new image down to disk for upgrades". I think
there's a time and place for both and Atomic Host had a nice merging.
Container Linux with the rpm-ostree tooling should be really nice for orgs
that want to customize their distributions.

I'm only a novice Ignition user though, so I'd appreciate it if anyone could
tell me what benefit it has over kickstart for provisioning nodes and clusters
that makes Red Hat want to keep using it. Kickstart clearly has way more
configurability for deciding how you want the host to be provisioned (at the
expense of added complexity), so the only place I see Ignition adding value is
that it's a really easy way to group nodes and assign roles by hostname, like
a lightweight Cobbler install or something. Am I missing something else?

------
karp773
Canonical has timed its announcement of Minimal Ubuntu (29MB) really well. [0]

[0] [https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/07/09/minimal-ubuntu-
released](https://blog.ubuntu.com/2018/07/09/minimal-ubuntu-released)

------
darren0
I think by the time they figure out what Fedora CoreOS will be, they will have
basically missed the boat for non-Red Hat customer adoption.

Basically it will only really matter for people running OpenShift.

------
raziel2p
I'm cautiously optimistic about Fedora CoreOS, but am worried that it brings
with it bloat that wasn't present in Container Linux.

------
mixmastamyk
What is the story with rkt? Is it deprecated?

~~~
davidmr
Yes, they announced at the Red Hat summit that they'll be phasing out
development of rkt, though of course will do nothing to stop outside
development. Between docker and cri-o, I think they decided that the need for
a third supported and actively developed runtime wasn't enough to justify the
effort. I'm excited to have the rkt developers work on cri-o, assuming that's
where they're going.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Bummer, I preferred it in some ways.

------
thinkmassive
Where does SilverBlue fit in? Is it going to be the workstation distro of
Fedora CoreOS that bundles a GUI and some userland tools?

[https://teamsilverblue.org/](https://teamsilverblue.org/)

I’ve been interested for about a year and gave Atomic a couple test drives,
but with the CoreOS acquisition and so much overlap between these projects I’m
wondering if RedHat actually has a plan for each of them.

------
merb
> In-place upgrades from Container Linux to Fedora CoreOS will not be possible

...

Why not use the flatcar-linux model?!

------
tango12
We've crossed the point where running Kubernetes on CoreOS was easy.

Maintaining Kubernetes on Ubuntu with docker (vs rkt) is now just easier to
handle.

------
IloveHN84
You mightwant check Alpine or ArchLinux. They are fast, reliable and updated
regularly.

~~~
jhasse
In my experience Arch Linux isn't that reliable. I had a few packages which
where broken for weeks and I couldn't manage to downgrade them due to the
rolling-release nature.

With Fedora there are less feature updates and I can still go back to a
previous release. And if I really need the cutting edge, I can cherry-pick
packages from Rawhide.

------
t3f
I think the title needs to be fixed, it's a tad sensationalist. The Google
Groups message is just "Container Linux project update" and is dated May 18th.
Since then, there has been more clarification [0], [1], [2], that really calls
out a rationalization of the RH roadmap and where CoreOS fits. It might be
fair to say that RH doesnt plan to support "CoreOS Container Linux" in exactly
the fashion prior to acquisition, but it would be disingenuous to imply it is
being wholly discontinued.

[0] [https://coreos.com/blog/coreos-tech-to-combine-with-red-
hat-...](https://coreos.com/blog/coreos-tech-to-combine-with-red-hat-
openshift)

[1] [https://coreos.com/blog/fedora-coreos-red-hat-coreos-and-
fut...](https://coreos.com/blog/fedora-coreos-red-hat-coreos-and-future-
container-linux)

[2] [https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-
coreos/](https://fedoramagazine.org/announcing-fedora-coreos/)

~~~
sctb
Thanks! A moderator updated the link from
[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/coreos-
user/PFHJQMJSRb...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/coreos-
user/PFHJQMJSRbE/nUGlUYpXBQAJ).

------
cremp
Hold on, lets just buy the competition so we can rack in more enterprise
clients. :/

With my experiences with RedHat, The only thing I've gleamed from it is that
they are a mess with packages, and are their own 'standard.'

------
gcb0
RH became irrelevant when everyone was moving to cloud shenanigans and they
didn't update their pricing accordingly.

when even fortune50 have to drop your product they used for decades because of
costs, that's a very clear indication of the end.

~~~
LaSombra
Source?

~~~
edge_less
I have heard(both directly from customer and from friends at other orgs) of 3
Global 500 companies in the past 6 months walking away from OpenShift due to
licensing costs. I am sure this will play out more frequently over the next
12-18 months.

Take some time to review RH's annual statement from 2017. Think about where
they were in 2013/14, where we are at today and what things might look like in
2023. I am interested to see how they navigate the market. There is a fleet of
Titantic like vessels plowing through the enterprise ocean right now...it will
be interesting to observe what plays out over the next 3-5 years.

