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0 pointsffsm88mo ago0 comments

Sorry, but then your opinion is just plain wrong

Bare metal in the context of running software is a technical term with a clear meaning that hasn't become contested like "AI" or "Crypto" - and that meaning is that the software is running directly on the hardware.

As k8s isn't virtualization, processes spawned by its orchestrator are still running on bare metal. It's the whole reason why containers are more efficient compared to virtual machines

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mystifyingpoi8mo ago

I think both of you are correct.

Of course, a process running inside Kubernetes Pod, on a baremetal node will show up in `top` if I run it on the node directly. In such terms, it is running directly on hardware.

But when I deploy this Pod, I'm not interacting with the OS in any way. I'm interacting with Kubernetes apiserver, telling it what to run, not really caring about the operating system underneath. In such terms, the application is running "in k8s".

mwcz8mo ago

This discussion made me realize that I have a head canon definition of "bare metal" that applies more to the programming environment than the deployment environment. It would exclude any runtime translation to the native instruction set, such as a VM, bytecode VM, language interpreter, etc. Basically identical in meaning to "static compilation", so I'll update my brain to the conventional meaning.

bee_rider8mo ago

Bare metal as in, no operating system? Does Linux really get in the way of these LLM inference engines?

ffsm8OP8mo ago

No, as I said in my previous comment: bare metal as in not a virtual machine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bare-metal_server

pessimizer8mo ago

Note that this is a term whose meaning has been expanded to refer to non-VPS servers very recently. Bare-metal has traditionally meant "without an operating system." It did not mean "a server that is an actual server," because that was the default.

It also does not always "clearly" have this new meaning. Somebody who is used to running programs directly (with no intermediate OS) on hardware might not understand what you're saying, or might ask you to clarify, and you probably shouldn't feel put upon by a totally understandable misinterpretation.

edit: Especially when you keep repeating "directly on hardware" when you mean "not on a VM." VMs also run on hardware. You're saying that you're only running on one OS instead an OS in your OS.

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