[HN Gopher] Mkosi - Build Bespoke OS Images
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Mkosi - Build Bespoke OS Images
        
       Author : leetrout
       Score  : 53 points
       Date   : 2025-07-16 16:14 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (mkosi.systemd.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (mkosi.systemd.io)
        
       | NewJazz wrote:
       | I've been meaning to try this other tool
       | 
       | https://github.com/osbuild/bootc-image-builder
        
         | jordemort wrote:
         | I've been having great success with this one at my day job.
         | Being able to apply all the container workflows to VM images
         | has been a boon.
        
       | jauntywundrkind wrote:
       | Does seem to support cross-architecture image building, which is
       | a feature that's kept me on Debian's multistrap and now
       | mmdebstrap.
       | 
       | I should give this a go!
       | 
       | The README's reference page has some good write-ups et cetera!
       | There's a good "re-introduction" on Lennart (creator of systemd,
       | mkosi) site, from the current maintainer.
       | 
       | https://github.com/systemd/mkosi?tab=readme-ov-file#referenc...
       | https://0pointer.net/blog/a-re-introduction-to-mkosi-a-tool-...
        
       | pmarreck wrote:
       | is this another case of "something that nix already definitively
       | solves, but for the rest of us"?
        
         | bsammon wrote:
         | Or "something that nix already solve, but with documentation"
        
           | bketelsen wrote:
           | Normally I'd nod and smile at the nix documentation joke, but
           | mkosi's documentation is the man pages, or the man pages.
        
             | jraph wrote:
             | It seems quite well written and easy to follow.
        
       | mring33621 wrote:
       | What's the use-case for this?
        
         | mhitza wrote:
         | Most likely context I'm going to try it is in a systemd-nspawn
         | context. Lightweight process namespace ("containers") closer to
         | the native modern linux server runtime (systemd all the way).
        
         | its-summertime wrote:
         | one image to deploy mostly without additional tooling on any
         | systemd-based OS (which mounts the image and integrates the
         | units from it), on a VM (just use it), or on bare metal
         | (probably needs to be built on a full image but still can just
         | use it assuming that is the case).
        
         | af78 wrote:
         | It is used by the systemd team to test systemd on a bunch of
         | distros.
         | 
         | https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/main/.github/workflo...
        
       | miladyincontrol wrote:
       | Yeah, systemd's particleOS relies on it. Pretty neat stuff
        
       | deanputney wrote:
       | Does this work for Raspberry Pi? Say for example I wanted to make
       | an image that would auto-connect to my Tailscale network, or pre-
       | install some software, would this be able to achieve that?
        
         | sl-1 wrote:
         | I use [pi-oven](https://github.com/keichi/pi-oven) for my
         | raspberry images. Not perfect, but kind of works and removes a
         | lot of hassle for the provisioning.
         | 
         | Could not quickly find out from the project page an example on
         | how to bake rpi images with mkosi, but the descriptions do
         | point towards somewhat similar use case :shrug:
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-07-16 23:00 UTC)