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author Samuel Hodgkins <samuel.hodgkins@sky.com>
date Sun, 25 Mar 2018 04:04:04 +0100
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1 [[!tag tech linux bedrock old]]
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2 I am very much a fan of Linux, using it as my primary OS on my computer. Obviously, I have used multiple distributions of it.
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3 Each distribution has it's own independent software library that is integrated with the package manager and the system as a whole.
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4 (Note: I am very much aware that Linux From Scratch and similar exists. I'm talking about the general case where *some* form of package manager/management exists. )
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6 This has some advantages:
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8 - No random downloading of installers/executables from the Internet like on Windows
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9 - You can browse and search for available software
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10 - Everything in the repositories follows a single set of standards / policies that the user can apply to any installed program.
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12 All in all, it's a very wonderful user experience. However, it isn't perfect. Repositories provided are always finite.
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13 They cannot and will not include every program that exists, nor include variations of included programs.
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14 This can very easily become a problem, such as in the following situations:
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16 - You want a different version of the program than the one available in the repositories.
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17 - You want a program that simply isn't in the repositories.
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18 - You want a program that is in the repositories..but was created using options you want to change.
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20 If you enter this situation, there are many many ways to manage/deal with it, each having their own trade-offs/side-effects
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21 but today I'm going to focus on one particular case:
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22 You are a user on Distro X that has somehow got into one of the 3 situations described above.
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23 While browsing the internet for solutions, you see that a package from Distro Y would get you out of this situation.
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24 How do you install that package from Distro Y onto your Distro X installation?
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26 Normally, you simply *can't*. Distro Y packages are built to work on that one only, there's no support for Distro X
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27 and you can't even install it, since Distro X's package manager only supports the specific format used by Distro X.
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28 Even if you did get it to install, you'd have problems with dependencies and other cross-distro differences.
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30 At this point you might be asking, 'What is Bedrock Linux and how does it come into this' to which I answer this:
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31 Bedrock Linux allows you to *combine* multiple installed distributions. You're not limited to just 'Arch Linux' or just 'Debian'.
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32 Instead, you can have both Arch and Debian installed and be using programs with each concurrently. Of course, those two are just examples
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33 - you can have any number of distros concurrently installed and functioning.
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35 It should be obvious how this applies to the hypothetical situation above. For someone using Bedrock Linux, the above is mostly a non-issue
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36 as packages from Distro Y can easily be installed - even if most of the packages on your system come from Distro X.
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37 The full story of how this is achieved is somewhat complex and involves decent amounts of filesystem manipulation but to simplify, each
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38 distribution/chunk of files is called a _stratum_ in Bedrock Linux terms. Aside from special strata, each stratum is a self-contained installation of a distribution.
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39 The combination of multiple strata as a single system results in something that not only has a much deeper pool of software to draw upon and use, but can leverage the strengths provided by each individual stratum.
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41 Under Bedrock Linux, you can install Distro Y packages on a mostly-Distro-X system because that Distro Y package is installed into a complete functional installation of Distro Y.
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42 (and is accessible via a filesystem directory specially maintained by a Bedrock Linux component)
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43 There are certainly many other potential applications and use cases for Bedrock Linux, but this is one of the more obvious and immmediately useful ones.
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45 Should you wish to find out more, there's plenty of documentation [here](https://bedrocklinux.org/).