Notices by @kmicu@mastodon.social (kmicu@mastodon.social), page 14

@strypey a container let us create a lightweight virtual machine and when we are inside, everything is like in a regular OS.

Guix is a package manager that does not let us install two packages in the same place on disk unless those packages are bit-by-bit identical.

That’s accurate, but probably has even less sense 😹

@strypey those are valid questions. I must admit it is difficult for me to offer some good analogy to explain the difference between Guix/Nix and containers/Flatpacks/Snaps/Appimages and I really want to avoid ‘container is like a bucket, Guix is like a git’ thing 😹

The fact that we can use Guix inside a container or we can use Guix to create a container does not help too.

Also I want to avoid math-talk about referential transparency, purity, functions. 🤷

@strypey could you give an example of such Docker recipe? I cannot create an identical/reproducible image based on https://github.com/docker-library/golang/blob/329b6672949337c4469351b2e8b8575459a75c7f/1.10/stretch/Dockerfile

Those RUN commands can result in a different image every time user runs the recipe.

How do you know that today’s Redis image on https://hub.docker.com/_/redis/ is the same as yesterday’s one?

@matteodem if I understand correctly Github company had no choice. They could not figure out how to make profits and Microsoft has funds to keep it going. (Similar story when Google acquired Youtube.)

So Github-under-Microsoft is better than no Github at all or better than Github-like-SourceForge injecting malware into hosted tarballs to make portal profitable.

The acquisition is better for Github company, but we could argue that Github bankruptcy would be better for the software ecosystem. 🤷

@strypey use cases are diverse from profound one like reproducible scientific research https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/04/21/298653
to trivial one like operating system rollbacks: something is broken after updating packages? Reboot, boot into previous system version and you can start working after wasting only seconds. That is not the case when a mutable package manager bricks your OS (apt-get, pacman, etc).

Guix(SD)/Nix(OS) is like git―it let us travel in time, but on the package manager / operating system level.

@strypey in typical Guix/Nix usage there is no container like isolation. I can install 5 different versions of Firefox 60 and run them at once. There’s no isolation like in case of Docker containers. Those Firefoxes can see and interact with my regular operating system. They can see each other.

I can, additionally, use namespaces, cgroups, etc to isolate/limit those Firefoxes, but that is not the case by default; that’s optional.

QubesOS is more similar to the idea from the presentation.

@strypey
we can use Guix/Nix to create/simulate containers, but then we use the same kernel features that enable containers.

The difference is that we can use Guix/Nix to accomplish much more stuff (also unrelated to containers). For example we can recreate *identical* environment from sources. You do not need to take my container image (maybe I put some malicious stuff in it?) instead you can take my description and build the same container from sources and images will be identical.

@strypey a container for every app approach is focused on isolation. Things in those containers can still be mutable, state-full and not reproducible.

That is nothing like Guix(SD)/Nix(OS).

@orbifx @wakest @mdallastella there is also
http://dist-bugs.branchable.com/software/ when sending a patch via email and browsing a mailing list archive is not enough.

GitHub took away from folks that feeling when you locally grep over all issues and messages around a project; in seconds; without a browser.
[jokin' and shoutin'] Shame. Shame. Shame!

@HyuchiaDiego heh, remote access to elderly parents' computer is a classic (it keeps us, supporters, sane ;).

@HyuchiaDiego a keylogger is an extreme case but *I* could accept it when someone has a 6yo that cannot even understand Internet, but want to use it. Of course I would prefer to be honest with a kid and tell her 'you are a little bit to young, but I will let you use Internet, but remember that I am able to see what you do, do we have a deal?'. (I could also accept a keylogger during work hours.)

OTOH keylogging an adolescent is not ok, b/c by then they develop relevant adult traits.

@HyuchiaDiego I see it differently, we accept spying on children more than spying by government on us because those are two different relations — we choose a government every n years to do what we want. Children do not choose parents and tell them what they should do for the next x years or vote whether they want to eat vegetables.

Similarly we find blocking porn acceptable to protect our kids, but government (chosen by us to serve us) should not censorship against our will.

@otini PSPS that reminds me a popular TeX saying: “It's not that the margins are too wide. It's that the paper is too big!”¹.

¹ https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/71172/why-are-default-latex-margins-so-big#71211

@otini Latin Modern is based on Computer Modern and has an extended version called Latin Modern Sans Extended (designed for small font sizes; below 9pts).

I think you could visually search for something at http://www.tug.dk/FontCatalogue/alphfonts.html

I’m fond of fonts from GUST e-foundry so TeX Gyre * collection or lovely Antykwa Półtawskiego ftp://ftp.gust.org.pl/TeX/fonts/poltawski/doc/fonts/poltawski/ap-info.pdf

PS I think Donald Knuth created Computer Modern just right and the typeface is not “too thin” 😜

@otini what do you have in mind?
[Jokin’] THE ANSWER IS OUT THERE
https://www.ctan.org/topic/font