Greetings,

The sub-subject of this should be: OpenVZ/Virtozzo 7 packages distro packages?

----- Original Message -----
> Is it possible to build kernel packages/userspace utilities for
> debian jessie as well ?
> 
> Right now there is only kernel/userspaces utilities for debian wheezy
> and userspace only for debian jessie.

Before I start my semi-rant, I want to make it clear that I'm just a user and I 
have no idea what Virtuozzo's plans are.  Clear?  Ok.  Now to start.

Will there be packages OpenVZ/Virtozzo 7 packages for other distros?  I don't 
think it is a good idea.  As you know, V7 is its own distro... rebuilt from EL7 
(CentOS).  It supports both containers and KVM virtual machines... and offers 
its own library based tools as well as integrates with libvirt (and the goal is 
to upstream the libvirt stuff although I don't know the status of that).  There 
are a lot more userland tools than the small handful of things used in OpenVZ 
Legacy.  I believe there are also some lower level distro packages that have 
been modified to meet the needs of V7.

The host node is for running VMs and containers... not other services... not 
user accounts... just for virtualization.  The strength of say Debian... is 
that it is built for a wide range of arches and has a very, very big package 
collection.  None of that is needed for a V7 virtualization host.  Debian is a 
"universal OS" aka general purpose.  What Virtozzo is offering is a distro 
built just for the purpose.

The work involved in building all of the V7 packages for other distros would be 
significant.  Then what about the (probably very small number of) distro 
packages that V7 would want/need to replace?  What about testing it?  Both KVM 
VMs and containers?  How big is that test matrix going to be?  Your distro 
already has libvirt and KVM packages but you aren't going to try and use those 
are you?  You want the ones tested with V7.

Red Hat bought Qumranet... and is the main driving force behind KVM, libvirt, a 
significant chunk of every mainline Linux kernel's development (#1 identifiable 
company on most all kernel releases)... they ship and support KVM.  They have 
their own virtualization products built on top of it (well several if you count 
OpenShift and all of its flavors and RHEV).  They are the main driving force 
behind gcc and glibc, etc.  They sponsor a lot of work.  RHEL and the EL clones 
are supported for a long time.  Their kernels are supported for a long time.  
It is the most appropriate platform (in my opinion) for building on top of 
especially when that product is related to a core competency of EL which is 
KVM, libvirt, etc.

When you have a product that has a lot of packages and requires it to all work 
together well... trying to shoehorn those all onto multiple distros is a lot of 
work.  There are two basic approaches... bundle everything you use... and 
totally ignore what the underlying distro provides... OR support a limited 
number of distros and build specifically for them (the Zimbra approach... with 
the number of supported distros dwindling over time).  I don't think either of 
those would be a good approach giving the nature of a newish company with a new 
major release coming out.

How long is it taking Virtuozzo to get the product to the market after EL7 was 
initially released?  How long of a lifespan does it have left on that platform? 
 Compare that to the lifespan of other distros.  If V7 was targeted at a Debian 
release how much life would that version of Debian have left in it?  It seems 
to me that about half of the distro lifespan would be devel time leaving only 
half of it for deployment time.

Are Red Hat, Gentoo, SUSE users demanding that Proxmox VE make packages for 
them?  Not really.  Proxmox VE is derived from Debian and can probably be used 
easily on any Debian-based distro that uses the stock Debian repos... but 
anything else... forget about it.

Now having said all of that... if you can make a compelling argument on why 
Debian (for the host node) would be a better distro to build upon for this use 
case (or any other distro), I'm all eyes/ears.

Or if someone wants to take all of the code and built packages on their own for 
other distros that's fine... but expecting Virtuozzo to do it I think is asking 
too much.

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
(406)388-0827 [home]
(406)994-3931 [work]
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