Fullstaq Ruby

Why Fullstaq Ruby?

A while ago, the people from Fullstaq and I started the Fullstaq Ruby project: a Ruby distribution that's optimized for server use cases. Compared to normal MRI Ruby, Fullstaq Ruby uses 50% less memory, is faster, and is easier to install and security-patch because of RPM and DEB packages.

Since I announced Fullstaq Ruby on EuRuKo 2019, I have received many questions about Fullstaq Ruby's vision, purpose and nature:

  • Is Fullstaq Ruby a commercial product, or are there such plans?
  • How will Fullstaq Ruby stay maintained?
  • Who is in control of Fullstaq Ruby?
  • Why are the changes in Fullstaq Ruby not in upstream Ruby? What is the current, and envisioned, relationship between the Ruby core developers and Fullstaq Ruby?

In other words, people are wondering: "how do I know this is, and stays, a real thing that I can count on?"

These are legit questions! As the author of Passenger and Ruby Enterprise Edition, I've experienced first-hand what the challanges are of building a healthy open source project. In this post, I will describe my vision on this matter.

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Fullstaq Ruby epic 3: CI/CD (= faster updates), Ruby updates, Debian 10 support

Fullstaq Ruby is a server-optimized Ruby distribution: 50% less memory, faster, easy to install and security-patch via APT/YUM.

We've reached an important milestone in the Fullstaq Ruby roadmap. Epic 3 introduces a continuous integration and deployment system! This means that from now on, we can release updates much faster, and with fewer defects.

We put the CI/CD system to the test right away, and used it to release Ruby version updates. We now package Ruby 2.7.1, 2.6.6 and 2.5.8.

Additionally, we now support Debian 10 (contributed by Nathan Broadbent).

Want to install or upgrade? Check the installation instructions, or run apt upgrade/yum update.

In this article I'll explain why having a CI/CD system is so important. I'll also give you a sneak peek into what to expect in the near future.

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