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MichaIng / DietPi

Lightweight justice for your single-board computer!
https://dietpi.com/
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DietPi-General | Restructure of supported images #1281

Closed Fourdee closed 6 years ago

Fourdee commented 6 years ago

https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1257#issuecomment-350415601

For discussion/consideration.

MichaIng commented 6 years ago

I just created a single image so far, so have limited experience about how much work it does to support that much devices. Indeed it took some time to create the image, but also I needed to learn how to deal with Debian installation questions and other things, one would have known, creating images more often.

But my impression is, that one special strength about DietPi is, that it does support so much different devices. The main developer of NextcloudPi already shared a thought about switching to DietPi as a grounding platform, because of that. Obviously it is not easy to provide software well working on different hardware, especially if it's about Linux, ARM etc. and involving sometimes many software working together. But we gathered now many experience here about that, and my impression is that it worked not too bad. The most issues occurred not because of different devices, but because of issues "outside" of DietPi, problems with PPAs, apt package issues, changed software commands etc. Those issues will occur also, if we support less devices and are solvable mostly for all together at one.

Of course image creation is a topic. If we focus on that, trying to automate the process as much as possible, this would be great. Also it would be nice to find other people, owning a certain device, willing to regularly create an test the related image. But that's another topic again...

Long story short, supporting many different devices is a strength and not a weakness, and we first should thing about how to reduce the workload, this produces (mainly image creation), before dropping it completely.

Fourdee commented 6 years ago

@MichaIng

👍

Maybe a solution would be to class these images as lower priority, and make user aware of?:

k-plan commented 6 years ago

@MichaIng

I just created a single image so far, so have limited experience about how much work it does to support that much devices.

Do this for a VM is relatively fast, if you don't own ten years old hardware like me. And if I remenber correct, VM are appears relative late in DietPi timeline and was in bottom line a helping tool for developer, not for enduser.

Messing around with several SBC, SD card, old images versions be a mess, a very slow and time-consuming process. I can send you a OrangePi One and some SD card, so you can get an idea of it. If something goes wrong or you slip up, you have so start over again and again. And if you are into the last period of life like me, you don't have the time, patience and nerves to do this very often.

If we focus on that, trying to automate the process as much as possible, this would be great.

Yea! 💯 👍 Waiting for your scripts, program, system, ... or what ever it will be.

Also it would be nice to find other people, owning a certain device, willing to regularly create an test the related image

Yes. Trust in me, we have try this in the past but without consistent success.

Und, damit das nicht falsch rüber kommt, ich persönlich bin mehr als froh, dass es im Moment so gut läuft, etwas Bewegung in die Sache kommt, ein Überdenkungsprozess begonnen hat und du Dich in dem Gesamtprojekt mit so großen persönlichen Einsatz einbringst. Danke dafür.

k-plan commented 6 years ago

The main problem in my eyes is, things have change over the time so many times:

... but by all changes, we never discontinue support for historical stuff and devices.

At the beginning it was not a big problem, because @Fourdee has enough time and energy to keep hold all the balls rolling. But nowadays this has change as well. https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1257#issuecomment-350415601

So I have a long time reflected, how we can get a better situation for all of us, for user and the project. https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1257#issuecomment-347275265

The only solution I see at the moment, to get a better long-term situation, is to discontinue support for for historical stuff (software) and devices.

To put it bluntly. Yes, I like my NanoPi Neo very much and it run 7/24 as PiHole DNS for my network. But I can live with discontinue support, if this will DietPi move on in future!

And please keep an eye on, I'm not a coder or can help out to keep things rolling. I'm only a longterm user, who can't speak english and do some housekeeping here and there.

It will be your arbitration.

MichaIng commented 6 years ago

@Fourdee Do you have download statitics of images? I am personally not a friend of data collection, but it would be interesting to know which software is actually used how much? Any other way we can derive that?

k-plan commented 6 years ago

@MichaIng

I am personally not a friend of data collection, but it would be interesting to know which software is actually used how much? Any other way we can derive that?

Yes we, I or you can do this by DietPi Survey. But, as always, it's very time consuming to get a statistic out of this. Shall I do this, if I get some spare time?

MichaIng commented 6 years ago

"Shall I do this, if I get some spare time?" Ah great, yes, if we already thinking about dropping ancient software, it should be a helpful guideline.

Generally, I like the idea to mark certain devices and software as low priority/no active development and imform users about this (instead of completely remove it). That way we can also ask for maintainers, people who use the device/software and are willing to at least help maintaining it. If someone is found, we can unmark the device/software as long as maintainer is there.

I e.g. will check in for Nextcloud+ownCloud, RPi (at the moment just testing, figuring out a way I can create image without disturbing production system) and VirtualBox Image creation+testing. I like to contribute where I can and where I find time on everything, but reliably only about stuff I actively use for now :wink:.

k-plan commented 6 years ago

Do you have download statitics of images?

I like as well to see this.

And please as well a traffic statistic for the past 12 month dietpi.com generate.

But only @Fourdee can share this information with us.

k-plan commented 6 years ago

@MichaIng @Fourdee

Device and Version statistic by DietPi Survey But please keep in mind, only devices will be count which:

cute-of date: 10-12-2017

Installations:

58,113

Debian Releases

Debian 8 "Jessie": 56,740

Debian 9 "Stretch": 1162

Other: 211

DietPi Version:

Used on devices: from v102 to v159

DietPi v15x at detail:

All Devices:

58,113

All "Raspberry Pi" Devices:

36,191

Device: "RPi "
35,875

Device: "RPi A "
35

Device: "RPi A+ "
63

Device: "RPi B "
4,650

Device: "RPi B+ "
1717

Device: "RPi 2 "
6306

Device: "RPi 3 "
19,425

Device: "RPi Zero W"
2607

Device: "RPi Zero "
866

ALL "Odroid " Devices:

4220

Device: "oDroid XU3/4 "
1018

Device: "oDroid C1 "
560

Device: "oDroid C2 "
2639

Device: "oDroid U3 "
3

All "OrangePi " Devices:

9012

Device: "OPi PC2 "
10

Device: "OPi Prime "
90

Device: "OPi Win "
179

Device: "OPi Zero 2 "
285

Device: "OrangePi Plus "
557

Device: "OrangePi Lite "
289

Device: "OrangePi Zero "
4,842

Device: "OrangePi One "
853

Device: "OrangePi PC "
1904

All "BananaPi " Devices:

579

Device: "BananaPi M2+ "
77

Device: "BananaPi Pro "
502

All "Pine A64" Devices:

1234

Device: "Pine A64 512MB"
57

Device: "Pine A64+ 1GB"
278

Device: "Pine A64+ 2GB"
899

All exotic or new devices:

898

Device: "RoseapplePi "
10

Device: "Asus Tinker Board "
665

Device: "A20-OLinuXino-MICRO "
0

Device: "Cubieboard 3 "
0

Device: "Beagle Bone Black "
4 + my own device 👍

Device: "Sparky SBC "
205

Device: "Native PC " 13

All different VM's

Device: "Virtual Machine " 3294

unkown devices:

2685

. . .

k-plan commented 6 years ago

@MichaIng

but reliably only about stuff I actively use for now

id 114 | =2 | nextcloud:
43.396

id 47 | =2 | owncloud:
2.216

wow ... :flushed:

Hmmm ... :pensive: 

id 93 | =2 | pi-hole:
7.337

😃

😉

Fourdee commented 6 years ago

@k-plan NB: Survey files are from March 2017 - Present day ~11th~ 10th (Dec 2017):)

Fourdee commented 6 years ago

@k-plan

k-plan commented 6 years ago

@Fourdee

NB: Survey files are from March 2017

yes, correct 21-03-2017. But online device will refresh their report from time to time.

Present Day (11th):

no, 10-12-2017 18:31 , because I have to download them to get it seached ... no rights to do this on your server. And please let it as it is. It's okay.

Thanks for the report! 👍

Fourdee commented 6 years ago

@k-plan

I changed . in your post, hope you do not mind? 11.890 users is 11 users lol (from my eyes) 😄

no right to do this on your server.

You have every right 👍

k-plan commented 6 years ago

11.890 users is 11 users lol

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Schreibweise_von_Zahlen#Dezimaltrennzeichen

We don't live on a island, but is okay! 😄

Was only decimal point to get it more readable here. But for sure 🇬🇧 next time. Promised.

MichaIng commented 6 years ago

Do I interpret this right? Average DietPi user is RPi owner, running Nextcloud? Hmm I am soo totally average it seems 😭 😆.

Note to myself: Opt out survey with my testing VMs 😉.

Fourdee commented 6 years ago

Marking as closed, in place of: https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/issues/1385