
Alpine Linux 3.7.0 Released - nikolay
https://alpinelinux.org/posts/Alpine-3.7.0-released.html
======
Sir_Cmpwn
Alpine is really good. I've been slowly migrating my boxen to it. Just
deployed 3 dedis recently running it, a handful of VMs, and I'm installing it
on my laptop before I go for holiday travel. I still have a couple of gripes
but they've done a damn good job. Note: I use the vanilla kernel distribution.

~~~
braderhart
Aren't you the creator of Sway? I recognize the username. Great work! I have a
feeling you'll be the next big WM for Linux Desktop. Nothing compares to
i3/Sway with a mechanical keyboard. Even Windows is moving applications to
tabbed interfaces:

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/28/16709190/microsoft-
windo...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/28/16709190/microsoft-
windows-10-tabs-file-explorer-sets-feature)

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Thanks! I'm glad you like it.

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snvzz
Notable because it uses musl and does some hardening, such as building
everything as PIE.

Musl is a promising glibc replacement.

~~~
nikolay
Unfortunately, Musl is a bit slower in things like memory allocation, etc.

~~~
snvzz
Sure, it's slower than glibc at some things. And faster at others.

[http://www.etalabs.net/compare_libcs.html](http://www.etalabs.net/compare_libcs.html)

I believe it better overall.

~~~
nikolay
As I've seen the above comparison already, glibc is the one better overall
when size doesn't really matter.

------
nikolay
New Features and Noteworthy New Packages

\- Support for EFI;

\- Support in the installer for the GRUB bootloader

Significant Updates

\- GCC 6.4

\- LLVM 5.0

\- Go 1.9 \- Node.js 8.9 (LTS)

\- Perl 5.26

\- PostgreSQL 10

\- Rust 1.22

~~~
bartkmq
What does EFI support mean? I remember booting Alpine on an UEFI system a few
months before this update so it can't be support for that. Is it maybe related
to efistub?

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brianwawok
So I am using Alpine and generally like it.

One question that perhaps someone on this thread will know... why does it
cache DNS differently from Ubuntu, and is there a way to fix it?

My app has a domain name for the database sever that I pass to Psycopg2.. say
foobar.something.google-cloud.internal. It resolves to the private IP of my
PostgreSQL sever.

The problem, is EVERY SINGLE database query is querying the DNS. I can
sometimes push 10,000 DNS queries per second. 9,990 of those are for the same
stupid database server. Kubernetes runs it's own DNS server which takes the
load, but sometimes they get overwhelmed a bit. I am obviously doing something
wrong, but not sure the path to explore down.

If I can fix this, then alpine is working pretty amazing for me :)

~~~
gtirloni
If your app is opening a new connection for every query, that might be your
problem. I would look into having a pool of connections.

Alpine uses musl instead of glibc. Maybe you can find a way to run nscd on it
but it doesn't seem very idiomatic for a container platform.

~~~
ifbizo
Thanks @gtirloni! I'm new to SQL and was working on a small internal tool.
This change, an obvious one in hindsight, sped up my tool by ~2-3x. So for
anyone else, check this!

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nindalf
I know Alpine is a great fit for any container env but I'm wondering, is it
used elsewhere?

~~~
harrygeez
I know a few people who actually use it as their main OS

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majewsky
Indeed. Just this week, someone in my hackerspace approached me who had just
switched to Alpine on his notebook, and he convinced me to quickly add support
for Alpine to the minimalistic configuration management tool that I'm
maintaining.

~~~
redbeard0x0a
I'm guessing this is the CM tool he was talking about:
[http://holocm.org/](http://holocm.org/)

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hgl
Glad to see updated packages. I wonder if they should be favored over those
offered by official Docker images when used in Docker?

For example, what are the pros and cons between using official Docker go image
vs creating a custom image from an alpine image with apk add go?

~~~
gtirloni
I think I read somewhere that Alpine will update packages only when there are
security fixes. I can't find a link to share, sorry.

If you're on Alpine Linux 3.6, you get access to Node.js 6.10.3 (or 7.10.1 in
the nodejs-current package)

If you depend on targeting very specific versions of your runtime stack and
also want to use Alpine, check if your stack offers official images based off
of Alpine. For instance, node:8-alpine, python:3-alpine, etc.

It seems most projects will offer Alpine-based Docker images these days. They
should update faster and more frequently, but that depends on each project.

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matt_wulfeck
In theory I’ve liked the container sizes. The problem is the moment you need
to do something useful with it ( I can stall python’s Requests library) the
image size balloons up and becomes just another container.

~~~
xena
Use something like [https://github.com/box-
builder/box](https://github.com/box-builder/box)?

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jbb67
Love alpine and it seeming less bloated than most other alternatives :)

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bartkmq
Alpine is a nice if you're looking for a really small os with an large number
of ported packages. I use it as a rescue system for my main linux os.

Only negative thing I can think of is that that their support forums¹ are full
of spam. [1]
[https://forum.alpinelinux.org/forum/4](https://forum.alpinelinux.org/forum/4)

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braderhart
Really hoping that Alpine will come through with an official Amazon AMI, or
with instructions that actually work on how to make your own.

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frik
Love that Alpine Linux uses OpenRC, and has no plans to switch to systemd.
[https://forum.alpinelinux.org/forum/general-
discussion/alpin...](https://forum.alpinelinux.org/forum/general-
discussion/alpine-plans-systemd)

Edit: why downvote, I like it that way, leaner OpenRC is great

~~~
dbcurtis
Yes, I'm also a fan of OpenRC. I have always found it intuitive.

Alpine aims to have a lean footprint and be highly configurable. I can't
imagine using systemd for small-footprint systems, especially since systemd
somewhat limits options for system organization.

As to the downvote, just consider it someone saying: "Your opinion is
inconsistent with my agenda, and therefore invalid." It's meaningless.

~~~
gvalkov
Systemd is not orthogonal to lean and small-footprint systems. This is a good
presentation on its use in embedded environments[0].

    
    
      [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERS1OSOTGpg

