Are Minimal installs really better?

IRJ

Maybe I am just sick and tired of installing basic shit whenever I am on a minimal install, but here are some of reasons behind why I question if minimals are really any better.

Configuration Drift
This is the big one for me. With a full install, you get most of the tools you need for troubleshooting and doing various tasks across the board. With minimal systems you need to add packages one by one as you need them. Which means your image could vary quite a bit from system to system.

Troubleshooting
This takes longer as every set of servers has a different set of tools, and many times needed tools are missing

Patching
Vetting patches becomes more difficult because of the configuration drift.

DustinB3403

A lot of these issues can be addressed with tools like Ansible or setup scripts, so I find your topic a bit awkward.

Romo

Wouldn't you just either keep an image with only the stuff you require and deploy that or just use config management to get the default minimal install to you what you require as well?

IRJ

@DustinB3403 said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

A lot of these issues can be addressed with tools like Ansible or setup scripts, so I find your topic a bit awkward.

Whatever way you want to slice it, package management is more difficult for OS level packages.

IRJ

@Romo said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

Wouldn't you just either keep an image with only the stuff you require and deploy that or just use config management to get the default minimal install to you what you require as well?

Creating a base image with everything you need is the actual solution here. The problem is how effectively can you do it.

scottalanmiller

@IRJ said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

Maybe I am just sick and tired of installing basic shit whenever I am on a minimal install,

Use Ansible or a script to add things to your baseline.

scottalanmiller

@IRJ said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

Configuration Drift
This is the big one for me. With a full install, you get most of the tools you need for troubleshooting and doing various tasks across the board. With minimal systems you need to add packages one by one as you need them. Which means your image could vary quite a bit from system to system.
Troubleshooting
This takes longer as every set of servers has a different set of tools, and many times needed tools are missing

I don't have this with either. We don't get the drift because we use standards to do the setup. ANd we also find that the baseline is lacking things whether something simple like netstat or something complex like our Zabbix agent. But we have to add on to every box regardless.

scottalanmiller

@IRJ said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

@DustinB3403 said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

A lot of these issues can be addressed with tools like Ansible or setup scripts, so I find your topic a bit awkward.

Whatever way you want to slice it, package management is more difficult for OS level packages.

Not sure what you mean. Any tools that will come with the non-minimal install will be handled great by being installed only as desired by Ansible or whatever.

marcinozga

@IRJ said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

@DustinB3403 said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

A lot of these issues can be addressed with tools like Ansible or setup scripts, so I find your topic a bit awkward.

Whatever way you want to slice it, package management is more difficult for OS level packages.

Define OS level package, because I have no idea what you mean. I'm guessing it's something from Windows world, but even there I haven't heard about such thing.

How is this any difficult when managing packages:

- name: install some packages
  package:
    name: "{{ item }}"
    state: present
  with_items:
    - package 1
    - package 2
    - etc.......

DustinB3403

With the full ISO for example, you'd find yourself wanting to uninstall a bunch of software you don't use.

Do you really need a podcast player on your Fedora Server?

scottalanmiller

I prefer minimal in most cases. I'm tired of the bloat. Not because it takes up so much disk space, but that's where bad things happen. Tools having issues that I didn't need to have there at all.

black3dynamite

@scottalanmiller said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

I prefer minimal in most cases. I'm tired of the bloat. Not because it takes up so much disk space, but that's where bad things happen. Tools having issues that I didn't need to have there at all.

Don’t you normally installed Fedora Server instead of minimal?

IRJ

@scottalanmiller said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

Tools having issues that I didn't need to have there at all.

I dont know if that is true. If a tool lay dormant and/or a service isn't running what kind of affect will it have? I find myself needing additionally shit after a packer image has been created and all the supposedly needed stuff has already been added.

1337

@IRJ
I think it's best to start with the smallest most basic thing and then add what you think you always need. That becomes your personal or company's minimal install and that might be larger or smaller than someone's else because we all need different things.

If we are talking Fedora Minimal Install then it's actually a pretty bloated affair compared to others like Debian for instance (only the base system, no extras). Even Fedora Custom Operating System option, which I assume is smaller than minimal, is bloated in comparison.

I have both installed on my test host in the latest versions and looking at dmesg Debian boots in 2.7 secs compared to Fedora's minimal/custom 9.7 secs. After boot Debian uses ~80MB RAM while Fedora uses ~240MB RAM. Fedora of course has more services running by default and pulls in more packages during install. Even Fedora Server's netinstall disk image is about twice the size.

scottalanmiller

@black3dynamite said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

@scottalanmiller said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

I prefer minimal in most cases. I'm tired of the bloat. Not because it takes up so much disk space, but that's where bad things happen. Tools having issues that I didn't need to have there at all.

Don’t you normally installed Fedora Server instead of minimal?

I do on Fedora, but not on most things. I find that Fedora Server I use quite a lot of.

Emad R

@IRJ

Minimal but not to the point of reaching alpine linux minimal. If you consider what is driving containers and everything it is about being very small and launch in seconds.. and they told me crazy when I spend hours making Windows xp and 7 as lite as possible 10 years ago and trimming the fat just to run single app like a game, i was such visionary.

1337

Also even when you install something bigger, what you need isn't always there anyway.

I consider for instance screen to be a pretty basic tool. Not in Fedora Server.
nmap ? Not in Fedora Server.
tcpdump? Yes, it was there.
iperf ? No, not in Fedora Server.
smartctl ? Yes, it was there.

I think whatever you distro/installation options you pick, you are going to need to add stuff anyway. If that is part of the post-installation process then it's going to be there when you need it.

IRJ

@Pete-S said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

Also even when you install something bigger, what you need isn't always there anyway.

I consider for instance screen to be a pretty basic tool. Not in Fedora Server.
nmap ? Not in Fedora Server.
tcpdump? Yes, it was there.
iperf ? No, not in Fedora Server.
smartctl ? Yes, it was there.

I think whatever you distro/installation options you pick, you are going to need to add stuff anyway. If that is part of the post-installation process then it's going to be there when you need it.

The problem is that when you have many different admins that use different tools. You might use Nmap while some people just want to use netcat. If netcat isn't installed, I probably wouldn't even think to use Nmap just because Nmap isn't standard. Nmap will also trigger the hell out IDS systems

Every admin is going to install their own shit and they will be configuration drift. If you had the full sever install there is arguably enough tools to do everything. Sure you are going to want to install a few packages, but not the amount you will add with minimal.

1337

@IRJ said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

If you had the full sever install there is arguably enough tools to do everything.

The above stuff was from Fedora Server install, not minimal.

IRJ

@Pete-S said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

@IRJ said in Are Minimal installs really better?:

If you had the full sever install there is arguably enough tools to do everything.

The above stuff was from Fedora Server install, not minimal.

You left out my next sentence

If you had the full sever install there is arguably enough tools to do everything. Sure you are going to want to install a few packages, but not the amount you will add with minimal.