GitHub Actions runners are based on Ubuntu, and from the Repology link it seems ValKey is in the "universe" repository which is a community supported repository and therefore might not be enabled by default.

Redis has always been in universe as well. Most things in Ubuntu are in universe and practically unmaintained.

Getting your software into the default package managers is not necessarily the best choice for a new and fast-moving project. You'll be stuck answering bug reports for an ancient version and monkey-patching it for the life of the LTS release. It's much more ergonomic, both for maintainers and users, to run your own PPA or repo with the latest version.

For users? Hardly.

If you want stable, you want a non-changing branch with security fixes only. No surprises, no api changes, no config file changes.

And you don't want to be stuck on a non-security fix version. You cannot sit on the same version without tracking security, while you slowly retool and recode for breaking api/behaviour changes.

Debian stable has redis, and others, and will see backported security updates for the life of the support window.

This isn't just about redis. If you're doing this with anything, you must track secuirty updates, must stay up to date, or you are negligent. And tracking changes for infra stuff like redis, and other backend stuff is a waste of resources with typically zero benefit.

I won't touch core daemons like redis, if it isn't distro maintained. I have better things to do. More important things to worry about.

You're right about Debian. Ubuntu is a different story. You're probably better off using an alternative repository for anything important that you find in the "universe" repo. That stuff is not "distro-maintained" at all.

Case in point: there are known vulnerabilities in the version of Redis shipped with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, which a lot of people would assume is still maintained. But Redis is in universe, so patches are only available for those with an Ubuntu Pro subscription.

Debian's contrib and non-free are similar, only 'main' is rigorously shepherded.

Only a small number of packages in Debian belong in contrib and non-free. Redis is safely in main.

Ubuntu throws 90% of its packages in universe and doesn't even bother to pull security fixes from Debian. It's absolutely irresponsible and not comparable to Debian at all.

> GitHub Actions runners are based on Ubuntu (...

That sounds like a GitHub Actions problem. GitHub Actions only offers a very limited set of container images, and for Ubuntu they just go with the LTS version that shipped before Valkey even existed.

https://docs.github.com/en/actions/writing-workflows/workflo...

You can use any Docker container to run your Actions.

Then the Redis that’s packaged for those versions of Ubuntu will be the BSD version... which is just an older version of Valkey.

Good lesson in when not to use chatgpt.

    $ docker run --rm -ti debian:trixie
    root@d12c52dcfee8:/# apt-get update && apt-get install -y valkey
    Get:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie InRelease [178 kB]
    ...

    root@d12c52dcfee8:/# valkey-server --version
    Valkey server v=8.1.1 sha=00000000:0 malloc=jemalloc-5.3.0 bits=64 build=13683752e517a7b6

Claude gives similarly complex answers for the same question with regards to valkey but simple solutions for redis:

https://claude.ai/share/ba9ecc54-5f21-4ec5-ab36-88e8eac38d1a

It seems like it went over your head that the package name is valkey, not valkey-server, so the instructions won't work. Why paste a long faulty AI response instead of linking to the concise official documentation?

https://valkey.io/topics/installation/

URLs also don't resolve

You're missing the point. LLMs aren't the source of truth, the docs are.