[HN Gopher] Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext
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Flatcar: OS Innovation with Systemd-Sysext
Author : goombacloud
Score : 109 points
Date : 2024-05-11 06:27 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.flatcar.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.flatcar.org)
| gtirloni wrote:
| TLDR: Flatcar is adding systemd-sysext to allow users to
| customize the system and there is a repository of prebuilt
| extensions.
|
| https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/syst...
| yokem55 wrote:
| I've used systemd-sysext's to add system level software to my
| Steam Deck withough having to unseal the root partition. It's
| slightly annoying in that that I have to rebuild the ext's every
| time the system updates, but otherwise they work great.
| goombacloud wrote:
| With static binaries that is not needed (and you can use
| OS=_any in the extension release file to mark them compatible).
|
| If you want to repackage distro binaries without recompilation,
| you can have a look here: https://github.com/flatcar/sysext-
| bakery/pull/74 There are two tools, one can bundle the needed
| libs in a separate folder, and the other one works more like
| Flatpak and uses a full chroot. Since you already know what
| files are needed at runtime I think you could try the first
| approach, otherwise the second might be easier.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| I just use an overlayfs of /usr pointing to a folder on my SD
| card. Then I just use their arch.. Every 3 to 6 months I pop
| out the SD card, update their stuff, then pacman install a few
| dozen packages main packages (and the quite a few more
| dependencies) that I need. I put it in a script for
| convenience.
|
| The only issue I've had is their static snapshot of arch has
| some inconsistent dependencies from time to time that need
| manual handling, and occasionally they are missing a cert
| change so you either choose to trust the package from their
| server anyway and install it with a cert skip, or do without.
|
| Aside from that, everything seems to work well, and if there
| were any problems, well I can always just reboot with the SD
| card removed.
|
| I was worried about how /etc might interact with their stuff,
| but seems fine so far, and I assume they left it writeable for
| a reason. I do do backups just in case.
| tuananh wrote:
| i tried pop os's new DE recently and they use sysext as well
| jamesponddotco wrote:
| Slightly off-topic, but I wonder if there is something like
| Flatcar for LXC/LXD/Incus, my preferred container runtime. Would
| be much better than what I do right now, a locked down openSUSE
| host server.
| goombacloud wrote:
| If you mean using Incus on Flatcar, there is a PR for adding
| Incus as systemd-sysext extension.
|
| Flatcar inside Incus is a bit more difficult: for Flatcar being
| a container one can import https://stable.release.flatcar-
| linux.net/amd64-usr/current/f... and for it being a VM I don't
| know if the regular image works. A major hurdle is that one has
| to tweak the way VMs/containers are configured because normally
| Ubuntu's cloud-init is used but in Flatcar only coreos-
| cloudinit or Ignition is supported and there are differences in
| the way the user-data has to be set up and the contents as
| well. But in the end Incus would be one more "cloud" platform
| to support and one could make the Incus integration as nice as
| with other platforms where Flatcar runs on (OpenStack, VMware,
| etc.).
| jamesponddotco wrote:
| Incus on Flatcar is what I mean. This seems to be the PR
| you're talking about[1]. I'll keep an eye on it, thanks!
|
| [1]: https://github.com/flatcar/scripts/pull/1655
| figomore wrote:
| Ublue Bluefin are looking for use systemd-ext too
| https://universal-blue.discourse.group/t/bluefin-is-feature-...
| jcastro wrote:
| https://github.com/ublue-os/sysext
|
| We have indeed been playing with this! We think it's a great
| compliment to extending an ostree OCI base image and hope to
| bolt on all sorts of goodies. Lots of cool innovation happening
| in this space right now, it's awesome stuff.
| INTPenis wrote:
| This means we're finally getting a podman container OS.
|
| https://github.com/flatcar/scripts/pull/1964
|
| No I don't count Fedora CoreOS because it's a full immutable
| Linux distro. Flatcar is more slimmed down than CoreOS.
| ilovecaching wrote:
| Long term I think bootc containers will win the war. It has
| better backing and the weight of Podman behind it. Sysext will
| likely play a role, but I think flatcar is a losing horse.
| apitman wrote:
| What is the current state of the "container Linux" ecosystem? It
| seemed like it was all the rage for a few years then sort of lost
| steam. Seems like a really good idea as a only moderately heavy
| container user.
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