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Nextcloud asked in a poll at https://mastodon.social/@nextcloud@mastodon.xyz/115095096413238457 what database its users are running. Interestingly one fifth replied they don't know. Should people know better where their data is stored, or is it a good thing everything is running so smoothly people don't need to know what their software stack is built upon?
If you're running it in a prebuilt container, as long as it works it shouldn't matter and you don't need to care.
Of course, when your database gets corrupted after Nextcloud updates because you had an app running that isn't supported in the new version, it will suddenly matter a lot.
I‘m using a hosted Nextcloud instance from Hetzner and I have no idea what this is running on either. There’s a significant number of people who didn’t set up their Nextcloud instance, so people not knowing what it’s running on isn’t too surprising.
I write software for a living, and have worked with all 3 database options in the past. I don't know what DB backend my nextcloud server is using, nor do I care.
Yeah, that is the kind of concern for the service developer or a very opinionated sys admin. For self-hosting, few people will reach the workload where such a decision has any material or measurable impact.
Exactly. Unless you are actively doing maintenance, there is no need to remember what DB you are using. It took me 3 minutes just to remember my nextcloud setup since it's fully automated.
It's the whole point of using tiered services. You look at stuff at the layer you are on. Do you also worry about your wifi link-level retransmissions when you are running curl?
"18% of car owners don't know their brake fluid DOT rating."
That is actually good news. Means that people more likely to be "normies" are adopting an alternative solution.
I can confirm I'm a newer user (not a normie) to Nextcloud and I don't know or really care what it uses because it works so I haven't had to learn what it is or how to debug it.
Every person using a computer should know what their filesystem is and what database they are using. Otherwise they are fools.
Can you believe kids don’t know what NTFS or APFS are these days?! Stupid iPad babies.
Haha at some point it did matter to regular folks though. I remember in Junior high when I would try to pirate games or software on Windows, I learned the big difference between fat32 and the new filesystem Microsoft released, NTFS because I couldn't download files larger than 4GB on fat32.
It’s important if you’re using flash drives across platforms though that’s pretty rare these days too. My wife has run into this problem by formatting as ExFAT (GUID partition table) when print shops’ terrible machines only support FAT32 and/or MBR partition tables.
Thankfully macOS at home understands ExFAT otherwise those formatted drives from her Windows work computer wouldn’t even work.
Wait is APFS a new file system than NTFS? Guess I'm too busy on my Tiktoks and Nintendos to keep up to date
Damn kids with your twitternets and me mes.
Apple file system
Ah that would explain why I didn't know. I have next to no experience with Apple devices.
Holy Poe's Law...
Kids don't event know the folder struture of their Home directory, so why would they know what a File System is? Lol
Sir, this is a Wendy's :)
Whatever the docker compose file that I found had
I also have no idea if my place has PVC or galvanized steel plumbing; or its designed electrical load. Why should users care about the DBMS.
The rule of internet polls is that the funniest answer is always over-represented.
I have five users, max, and barely any files. I don't know which one Nextcloud AIO uses and I don't care. There's no wrong answer for such a small deployment. It uses whatever database Nextcloud felt was sensible as the default. They know more about picking the right tool for their requirements than I do.
If I'm building something for myself, then I care.
Isn't that the whole point of containerised solutions? Having some pre-setup, auto-updating solution with very little requirement to dive into the details like what your database is and which dependencies you need to manage...
Theres heaps of hosted nextcloud services. Those users wouldn't know.
Honestly, does it matter to a regular user?
There will be some that do matter, if I were to run NC I would use Lite because why throw the data to another process just to write it to a disk when I only have a single node.
Nextcloud is pushed as an easy to use docker setup these days, heck most people I know who "use" it don't do much with it at all so what database it is using is gonna be way back in their list of priorities...
Plus the users outweigh the admins surely (as in those that just install then forget)
Since Nextcloud stores your actually data on the disk, it doesn’t actually matter all that much tbh
Users is the right word here, not admin, not sysadmin, not owner. Docker pull docker up users that’s it
Also just users. No docker or anything, just using the system someone else setup for them.
NextCloud is used everywhere, also in commercial use.
If some of them are users rather than admins, it makes sense and maybe it's a good sign that they don't have to know in order to use the service.
I mean.. I set it up many many years ago... Without looking it up I can also just guess.
And 46% have no idea what a database is.
it's a spreadsheet right?
I’ve made a choice a while ago while deploying Nextcloud. Now I don’t care, as I trust myself that I have opted for something reasonable which was hopefully not SQLite
Honestly I think if there is a hope for greater detach from "The Cloud" more broadly, it's a testament to nextcloud that folks that don't even know enough to know what DB they are running are able to run a server, and host things well enough to consider themselves users.
shhh
This statement brought was to you by someone that set up nextcloud and had no clue what DB it was using.
I can think of few things more boring than databases. I just want my files synced and stored.
It's awesome that you don't have to remember what software you're using underneath. I looked into it before I installed it, but I'd have to check which one I went with. I also have no idea what graphics card I'm using, which headset I'm using, what brand of eyeglass cleaner I'm using etc. I looked into it at the time, made a choice and promptly forgot about why and filled my brain with other things.
If I remembered which database I was running it means that I'd have enough problems with it that I'd look at it a lot.
Yes that's me. I have no idea what my Nextcloud uses