There are several different Alpine versions available. Docker images should probably be based on the Mini Root Filesystem version; Minimal servers should probably be based on the standard ISO, but check the descriptions.

Background info

The old standard for managing disk partitions was via the Master Boot Record (MBR). This was replaced by GUID Partition Table (GPT). This is more flexible, more resilient, allows larger partition sizes, and is used with UEFI systems. Tools like fdisk used to only support MBR, which made parted more useful for GPT support, but fdisk now also supports GPT.

A type 1 hypervisor provides virtualisation on a bare metal server. Type 2 runs within an OS. Type 1 hypervisors are more efficient and performant, but offer less flexibility. Also, type 1 hypervisors offer better security since OS vulnerabilies are limited to each virtual instance rather than the hypervisor OS, which could compromise all the hosted OSes at once.

Sometimes, when a process goes awry, you’ll want to find the pid with ps aux | grep <processname> so that you can kill it. Sometimes, you’ll need tools that let you do more investigating…

A few more notes about changes coming in Ruby 2.3

Git commits store two dates: the author date and the committer date.

Tony Hoare came up will Null references in 1965, and later called it a billion-dollar mistake. There are some languages today where null values are not allowed, but ruby isn’t one of them.