We shall call him Mini-U – Ubuntu reveals tiny cloudy server

Canonical has released a new cut of Ubuntu it recommends for use in the cloud and containers. “Minimal Ubuntu” is based on either Ubuntu 16.04 LTS or 18.04 LTS. A Docker image of the latter weighs in at positively paltry 29MB, making it a highly efficient starting point for developers needing to rapidly shovel out …

[Waseem Alkurdi]

<rant>

Like Windows NanoServer and ServerCore, this distro is not intended to be a sysadmin’s or developers daily desktop.

Why should it be?

Why is something this wonderful "not intended to be comfortable to use at the command line” ?

Imagine ... a desktop with an OS image this light!

Why didn't anybody do it before? A super-light desktop that includes proper coreutils (not shitty BusyBox)!

The problem if we use this one is the KVM-optimized kernel. Simply ripping it out might not work.

</rant>

[Tom Wood]

You can't have your cake and eat it

The things that make it comfortable to use also make it 'not small'.

Like how camping beds are less comfortable than regular beds.

[Teiwaz]

Re: You can't have your cake and eat it

Like how camping beds are less comfortable than regular beds.

But an air mattress is sometimes more comfortable than a camping bed and is smaller when deflated..

...today I am mostly picking nits.

[EvaQ]

also for Docker?

Will this "minimal-ubuntu" also be useful for Docker?

[Tom Wood]

Re: also for Docker?

The article mentions containers in the first sentence and Docker in the third. So yeah.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Ubuntu’s a little late to the game with this release, as the two versions of Windows mentioned above have been around for many months"

And Turnkey Linux has been around for years.

[iron]

And Windows Server Core has been around since 2008.

[phuzz]

No mention of Virtualbox, for those of us who are cheap prefer open source.

[werdsmith]

No mention of Virtualbox, for those of us who are cheap prefer open source.

Cheap open source and Oracle. Cannot last.

[Waseem Alkurdi]

I've always wondered why was the excellent piece of software called VirtualBox still FOSS.

[brym]

Maybe not Virtual box...

...but certainly mention of KVM. Who needs a GUI when you can ssh in.

Or qemu if you absolutely must.

[jheden]

Re: Maybe not Virtual box...

Haven't touched virtualbox since I found virt-manager.

[g00se2]

Images of the OS for the cloud are said to be “less than 50% the size of the standard Ubuntu server image, and boot up to 40% faster.”

So systemd didn't provide that boot optimization after all?

[Zarno]

Am I the only one who remembers...

Am I the only one who remembers when a full command line linux distro fit on a 3.5 floppy?

I also remember Damn Small Linux doing full GUI fun on the old 64M flash drives of the day, with room to spare for data.

And I'm not even that old. But sometimes I feel it.

[Waseem Alkurdi]

Re: Am I the only one who remembers...

When Windows 95 shipped on floppy disks and was ~30 MB installed.

Times do change.

[phuzz]

Re: Am I the only one who remembers...

Am I the only one who remembers when a full command line linux distro fit on a 3.5 floppy?

A command line OS, that's not that impressive. The Amiga desktop OS 'Workbench' fitted on one single density floppy (with a whole 880k of space). That's a fully graphical, multitasking OS with all it's utilities etc. on one floppy. IIRC there was even some free space on the disc, so even smaller than 880K.

(I've just checked, Workbench 3.1 used 846KB, leaving 34KB free)