December 31, 2021
In December 2020, the CentOS Project announced a series of changes.
The three most important are:
- the creation of CentOS Stream and the consequent rename of CentOS (the classic Linux distribution the project is known for) in CentOS Linux
- the anticipation to today (31/12/2021) of the End Of Life for CentOS Linux 8
- the fact that CentOS Linux 8 is going to be the last and that from now on, only CentOS Stream will have new releases
That announcement created a lot of different sentiments in the community and even more among the CentOS Linux users.
As many predicted, multiple solutions are now available for the users that used to be on CentOS Linux.
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April 29, 2021
For many years now, I’ve been using immutable versions of Fedora.
I remember that I started to play with immutable Fedora back in 2015 when Fedora Atomic was new.
I liked the idea since the first time I’ve read about it, but in the beginning, I did not spend too much time making it work on my setup because it seemed a little bit too complex.
At DevConf.cz 2016, I met Patrick Uiterwijk, who was running his spin of Fedora Atomic.
We had a long chat on it, and he explained to me his workflow.
Soon after, I started to use an immutable version of Fedora on my personal laptop, but I was not daring to use it on my work laptop.
When I left Red Hat at the end of 2017, my personal laptop became my only laptop for a little while, and the immutable Fedora became my only OS.
Since then, I’ve been using only immutable Fedora on my computers.
In June 2020, I took the time to clean up my build process and files, and I moved all the needed bits to a new git repo that is now openly available and can be found here.
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December 28, 2020
At the beginning of this month, I took the EX294 exam, which allowed me to obtain the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification.
It was the first time I attempted the RHCE exam, but I prepared myself in the past for the EX300 exam, the exam that allowed you to obtain the RHCE certification in the RHEL7 time, but never got around to do the exam.
Compared to what I had to study for the EX300, I found the EX294 program way more sensible.
An aspect I’ve never liked about the EX300 was that you needed to learn many implementation details, such as the in-scope applications’ configuration format.
EX294 changed this aspect since it is based on Ansible, and Ansible abstracts the majority of implementation details of the various applications.
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October 1, 2020
A few years ago, I did pass this exam, but since then, the certification expired, so I had to re-take the exam.
While the first time I did the exam in a testing center, this time I had to do it at home since all test centers are closed.
The experience of doing the exam at home has been a very positive one since you can arrange the environment as it better fits you.
You can have as much light as you like (within sensible limits), you can use the chair you prefer and the desk orientation you prefer.
You will not be allowed to bring cheating sheets or similar things since the proctor will ask you to show the whole room using the webcam, as you might imagine.
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August 10, 2020
This year Flock did not happen due to COVID-19, and in its place, Fedora Nest happened.
After many events I’ve seen going virtual in the last few months, I was skeptical.
I was yet to see an acceptable online platform to run events.
I was wrong on the platform.
Fedora Nest used Hopin, which is by far the best platform for events I’ve seen so far.
Don’t get your expectations too high, though, because when I say the best one I’ve seen so far, only means that it is usable, and it does not mean in any way that is on par of real conferences.
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April 15, 2020
Yesterday, a controversial proposal got posted in the Fedora Devel mailing list: enable systemd-resolved by default.
I see this change favorably since I already enabled it a few weeks ago, and I find it a very sensible option.
First, I have to admit that I see systemd and its mission of standardizing the core of the Linux user-space very favorably.
At the current level of evolution of Linux, over time, this standardization and consistency will pay off much more than other alternatives.
Therefore, I see the introduction of systemd-resolved positively and as an excellent way to abstract many DNS-related problems the rest of the applications.
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February 2, 2020 - Bruxelles, BE
This year, as it has happened for the last few years, I’ve been at FOSDEM.
As always, I’ve enjoyed it a lot, and that’s why I continue to go there, and every time I have to suggest other people which events to attend in Europe, I always mention FOSDEM as the main event.
I think it’s fascinating to see how room sizes and crowdedness of the rooms changes over time.
Years ago, the container-related rooms (containers, container security, Go) were relatively small, but already crowded, and over the years, the rooms got bigger and bigger.
Every year they have been very crowded to the point that for the majority of sessions, some people were turned away.
This year this pattern continued for those rooms, except for the Go one, which had a massive improvement in size, and, as far as I know, it never turned away people due to the over-crowdedness.
I think this speaks clearly on the importance that containers are getting in those years and the fact that they are quickly moving.
If there were no innovations in the container space for the whole year between two FOSDEMs, I think many people would prefer to go to other rooms.
I think this is what is happening to the Go room.
Even though I really appreciate the Go room and the Go language, I think it will shrink over the next years because - as it’s sane for a programming language - Go is not getting tons of new features every year.
Due to this lack of news, people that already know the language might opt for different rooms since, at FOSDEM, there are always many exciting talks at the same time.
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January 27, 2020 - Brno, CZ
As it happened at other times in my life, I managed to be present at DevConf.
DevConf is one of the best conferences that I attend.
The reasons are many and varied, starting from the location that I find relatively stress-free.
Another reason is the fact that there are many different kinds of sessions, and many sessions are not overcrowded, so it is relatively simple to participate in any session you would like to.
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February 4, 2019 - Bruxelles, BE
This year, as it has happened for the last few years, I’ve been at FOSDEM.
As always I’ve enjoyed it a lot, and that’s why I continue to go there, and every time I have to suggest other people which events to attend in Europe, I always mention FOSDEM as the main event.
This year, differently from previous editions, I tried to stick to a single room both days, being mostly in the Go room on Saturday and in the Containers room on Sunday.
I made this decision since I’ve seen the advantages of last year experience, where being in the same room for a whole day allowed me to follow more talks and to stress less.
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May 9, 2018
A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post about why containerization is not always the answer and I’ve received quite a few comments about it.
This article has the goal to analyze an aspect in favor of containerization which I believe to be true but was not mentioned in the previous post: the time aspect of the phenomenon.
In the ICT sector, we are used to new technologies, or at least we should be.
Speaking of architectures, I still remember when I started in the ICT sector that VMWare had just introduced ESX (not ESXi) and there were two ways of looking at it:
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(Fabio Alessandro Locati|Fale)'s blog