I just discovered bedrocklinux.org and am wondering where this mind-bending tool/toy has been all my life. This thing is amazing!

Pls elaborate

@b3b3 Bedrock Linux is a system that installs on top of a Linux distribution and let's you then install parts of otherwise incompatible distributions together and use them seamlessly as one system. It's a non-virtualized environment where you can pick and choose the best of different Linux systems and make them work together.

I'm still wrapping my mind around it, and there are limitations, but it's this mind-bending mashup of different ways of doing Linux all in one install. For those who care about such things, you can runs Debian, Arch, and Gentoo at the same time, and swap between their init systems with a simple reboot. They have stories of the system letting people get software working because another distro had what they needed when the main distro borked the compatibility.

It's a great big "do it to see if we can" that turned out to be useful and I love it. I like experimentation with my Linux systems, and this is almost the ultimate in that.

Apps are generally compatible across strata, as Bedrock calls the distros it works with, and it automatically separates critical system stuff while allowing configuration and data to be shared easily.

Again, it's ridiculous and amazing, and mind-blowing. I don't have a system I can throw it on at the moment, but I'll definitely be playing with this as soon as I can. It seems like it might be a reasonable way to dip my toes into Gentoo, which I've wanted to do for years, but I haven't wanted to brave the install process.

@M1sf3t Most distros structure their tools a bit differently. That, combined with the particular selection of system software (because there are usually two or three alternatives for any particular system component) and differences in configuration ( not to mention that some distros handle software installation very differently - Gentoo compiles from source using global configuration variables, Arch builds packages differently than how Debian does, and Ubuntu is slightly different than Debian, etc.) means that almost no Linux distros are directly compatible.

You can install the "same" software from repositories, but that puts you dependent on the versions the package maintainers provide. Compatibility breakages are not uncommon, especially as software upgrades occur, and distros are often out of sync. Source installs are similarly challenging. Packages can sometimes be converted across distros, but dependency versions and/or bames can be problematic. Did I mention inconsistent names?

@M1sf3t This meta distro lets you pick and choose software configurations, versions, and support infrastructure basically at will, while doing it's best to hide the complicated stuff that would normally get in the way/be irritating to do yourself. Distros don't always make consistent decisions about versions and dependencies (ensuring thousands of different pieces of software all work together flawlessly is very hard) so the opportunity to choose where your software comes from can be nice.

It also can be a safe(ish) way to experiment. Gentoo can be very daunting to install, but this tool let's you install Gentoo beside Ubuntu, say, configure it how you want, and replace Ubuntu's software as desired while leaving the Ubuntu system as a failsafe if you mess something up. While it's definitely not necessary for everyone, for an inveterate tinker like me, it's a masterpiece.

@M1sf3t Sounds like you're finding your own way at a pace that works for you. A lot of what I've mentioned won't apply to most users (hopefully obviously), and the Linux Standard Base means that the structure is mostly standardized. It's things like package names, versioning, and configuration that cause most of the issues that Bedrock Linux solves, and most people wouldn't see that as a problem (not a solvable one, anyway.)

I too plan to do LFS someday. I've got too many other interesting things sitting in front of that project, though.

Looks like a fuck ton of work and the potential creation of a very unstable system

@mundo03 It's not that bad if you're not too heavy-handed with it. You're right, though. Fortunately for me I like to tinker with complicated stuff, and I don't mind breaking things at times.

Mother of God 😯

@linuxxx I know, right?

@powerfulparadox haven't tried it myself but it sounds a lot like what Docker does, with focus on different stuff.

@M1sf3t nope, Docker only uses the kernel from the host system, afaik. It's essentially just a way to run sandboxed processes with their own environments and stuff. One of the biggest reasons to use Docker is that you get to define isolated environments easily and you avoid all distro/library/etc. conflicts.

@RememberMe yes and no. It's using much of the same basic technical capability (chroot and similar) while definitely going a different direction. It's not an inappropriate comparison, although it's pretty much doing the opposite of what docker does: docker isolates apps to make running them at scale easier, Bedrock isn't doing full isolation (it's pretty much just preventing conflicts from stopping what you want to do), and does its thing to make disparate systems and their components work together as one in a single environment. So, yeah. You're not far off, I guess.

@powerfulparadox I see, looks pretty cool.

@M1sf3t The point of containerization is to keep the parts of a system that might conflict from interacting with each other. Docker does it for complete environments (each container must provide all the scaffolding, or get it from another container) whereas Bedrock is trying to only isolate known conflicts while letting the rest of the system work as usual.

If what you mean by "leans heavily on the host system" is that Docker isn't virtualizing the entire OS, you're correct. It's using the same tech Bedrock uses to give native code it's own safe space to run in. It's typically not giving containers access to the host system's own libraries and other infrastructure, though.

I checked out on YouTube for Bedrock Linux after your rant. Then, I came across this video https://youtu.be/Wa-PSkM6eT8 This guy was downright frustrated and blasting about his experience with Bedrock Linux.

@geekmind They certainly make no claims of reliability or usefulness for all cases. In fact they try to dissuade those who aren't confident in their skills because it can be so easy to misconfigure and break something. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out (I'm at a historical presentation at the moment), but I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't patient enough to figure out it's eccentricities. As I hope I conveyed through my earlier comments, I'm someone who likes tinkering and doesn't mind breaking my software, so I'm probably an ideal user.

@geekmind Sorry for the long delay. Check out his another video in which he says that he misunderstood something and went wrong. He admitted that it was his mistake. Then, he says good things about it.