Linux

48033 readers

1026 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Am I overthinking it? (reddthat.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm working on my transition plan away from Windows and testing out various things in VMs as I do so, and one big hurdle is making sure the VPN client my work requires can connect. Bazzite is my target distro (primarily gaming, work less frequently), though other more traditionally structured ones like Pop!_OS and Garuda are possibilities.

I'm currently trying and failing to get the VPN client working in a distrobox (throws an error during connection saying PPP isn't installed or supported by the kernel). However, I can successfully get the VPN connected if I overlay the client and its dependencies via rpm-ostree install, but I read somewhere that Bazzite's philosophy is to use rpm-ostree as sparingly as possible for installing software to preserve as much containerization as possible.

Since I can get it working outside of a container, am I overthinking it? Should I just accept that this might be one of the "sparing" cases? Is Bazzite perhaps a poor fit for my use case? I've been trying to make sense of this guide, but I'm having trouble understanding how to apply it to my situation, since I'm not that familiar with Docker or Podman.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

But I’m fully aware that my frustrations are atomic problems

Are these frustrations solved by layering with rpm-ostree? If so, just go with it. I've always layered over a dozen or so packages and it has worked out fine; it's defaulted to automatic upgrades in the background, so you don't feel much of it anyways.

I just recently learned that openSUSE users also have a lot of stability due to btrfs snapshots, so maybe that’s really the feature I’m looking for. I don’t know much about it, honestly.

I love openSUSE and what they do with Btrfs snapshots and Snapper.

However, in terms of 'robustness' and 'stability', I don't think anything currently out there can hold up to Fedora Atomic, Guix System and NixOS. This is just by design; the leap from traditional to atomic, then reproducible and finally declarative ensures that issues related to hidden/unknown state, accumulation of cruft, bitrot, configuration drift are left behind in the past. If Btrfs snapshots + Snapper would have been sufficient, then openSUSE themselves would never have desired the creation of openSUSE MicroOS (i.e. their attempt at an 'immutable' distro) in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If Btrfs snapshots + Snapper would have been sufficient, then openSUSE themselves would never have desired the creation of openSUSE MicroOS (i.e. their attempt at an 'immutable' distro) in the first place.

An excellent point.

But to your earlier one, I can get the VPN client working outside of a container. There's even an RPM file from the vendor, so installing it is just as easy as installing any other package.

I appreciate the input!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

But to your earlier one, I can get the VPN client working outside of a container. There’s even an RPM file from the vendor, so installing it is just as easy as installing any other package.

Aight. You know what you ought to do then 😉.

I appreciate the input!

It has been my pleasure!