MicroOS GNOME Desktop Lightning Talk - SUSE Hackweek 20

A Brief introduction into openSUSE MicroOS Desktop, openSUSE's immutable Desktop operating system, and announcing the move of openSUSE MicroOS Desktop (GNOME) from [ALPHA] to [BETA] quality.

Transcript

1. Picture openSUSE MicroOS Desktop Hackweek 20 Progress 26 MARCH 2021
2. Copyright © SUSE 2021 2 Richard Brown MicroOS Release Engineer rbrown@suse.com @sysrich About Myself openSUSE contributor since it began SUSE employee since 2013 Passionate advocate of rolling releases Former Customer (Systems Manager), QA Engineer, openSUSE Board Member & openSUSE Chairperson Currently Linux Distribution Engineer in Future Technology Team focusing on two rolling distributions openSUSE MicroOS – Single Purpose Self Administering OS openSUSE Kubic – MicroOS for Kubernetes & Containers Photographer in spare time
3. Copyright © SUSE 2021 3 Why is MicroOS? Computers are no longer only laptops, desktops, and servers. People no longer use laptops, desktops and servers the same way as they used to.
4. Copyright © SUSE 2021 4 Regular Linux is NOT good enough Traditional Linux is like a Swiss Army Knife Lots of Services & Features - with increased chances of incompatibilities between services - and increased risk of complex failures
5. Copyright © SUSE 2021 5 openSUSE MicroOS openSUSE MicroOS is both predictable & immutable. It cannot be altered during runtime. MicroOS is reliable with automated updates and automated recovery from faulty updates. MicroOS is small with only what is needed to run it’s “one job”. Applications/Services are expected to be Containerised or Sandboxed.
6. Copyright © SUSE 2021 6 SLE Micro SLE Micro is both predictable & immutable. It cannot be altered during runtime. SLE Micro is reliable with automated updates and automated recovery from faulty updates. SLE Micro is small with only what is needed to run it’s “one job”. Applications/Services are expected to be Containerised.
7. Copyright © SUSE 2021 7 MicroOS Architecture openSUSE MicroOS is a rolling release based on openSUSE Tumbleweed. MicroOS is wholly built, developed, and tested as part of the Tumbleweed release process. Any test failure detected before the release of either Tumbleweed & MicroOS can prevent the release of both distributions. SLE Micro is a regular release based on SUSE Linux Enterprise.
8. Copyright © SUSE 2021 8 Transactional Updates Any change to a system should be applied reliably, reproducibly, and reversibly. Transactional Updates are: - Atomic - Either fully applied, or not at all - Applied without impacting the running system
9. Copyright © SUSE 2021 9 Rollback In the event of a failure/unwanted behavioural change Immutable: Nothing has changed on disk Rollback is done by booting an old snapshot This can be done as often as wanted
10. Copyright © SUSE 2021 10 Health Check Checks for errors during boot phase Error with new snapshot? Rollback to last known working snapshot Error with already successful booted snapshot? Try reboot, else shutdown services, inform admin Needs access to harddisk
11. Copyright © SUSE 2021 11 Toolbox MicroOS’ read-only root filesystem raises some challenges: - Reboot needed to install additional tools - Situation after reboot is different then before Toolbox: - Launches small, privileged container - Root filesystem available below /media/root - zypper to install the necessary tools - Persistent between usages
12. Copyright © SUSE 2021 12 My openSUSE MicroOS Life
13. Copyright © SUSE 2021 13 MicroOS Desktop openSUSE MicroOS Desktop is MicroOS where the ”one job” is running as a Desktop. MicroOS Desktop provides only a minimal base system with a Desktop Environment and Basic Configuration Tools ONLY. All Applications, Browsers, etc are provided by FlatPaks from FlatHub.
14. Copyright © SUSE 2021 14 Who is the MicroOS Desktop for? It is not for everyone. Your Tumbleweed & Leap Desktops are Safe :) It should be perfect for lazy developers, who no longer want to mess around with their desktop and just ”get stuff done”, especially if they develop around containers. It should also appeal to the same audience now more used to an iOS, Chromebook or Android-like experience where the OS is static, automated & reliable and the Apps are the main thing the user cares about.
15. Copyright © SUSE 2021 15 MicroOS Desktop Goals MicroOS Desktop should be reliable, predictable & immutable, just like regular MicroOS. MicroOS Desktop should be less customisable than regular openSUSE Tumbleweed/Leap. MicroOS Desktop should be small, but not at the expense of functionality. Printing, Gaming, Media Production and much more should all work. MicroOS Desktop should just work “out of the box”.
16. Copyright © SUSE 2021 16 MicroOS Desktop Status before Hackweek 20 MicroOS Desktop should be reliable, predictable & immutable, just like regular MicroOS. MicroOS Desktop should be less customisable than regular openSUSE Tumbleweed/Leap. MicroOS Desktop should be small, but not at the expense of functionality. Printing, Gaming, MultiMedia are all valid use cases. MicroOS Desktop should just work “out of the box”.
17. Copyright © SUSE 2021 17 Hackweek 20 Changes gnome-branding-MicroOS Introduced custom MicroOS config for GNOME Contains ‘mod-firstboot’ which automatically configures flathub per user and installs default applications from flathub PackageKit with txupd and libdnf Now uses libdnf and transactional-updates for updating system RPMs via GNOME Software Uses GNOME Software for installing flatpaks from flathub SELinux by default, tuned btrfs Deploys with SELinux by Default BTRFS now has CoW enabled for /home
18. Copyright © SUSE 2021 18 MicroOS Desktop Status after Hackweek 20 MicroOS Desktop should be reliable, predictable & immutable, just like regular MicroOS. MicroOS Desktop should be less customisable than regular openSUSE Tumbleweed/Leap. MicroOS Desktop should be small, but not at the expense of functionality. Printing, Gaming, MultiMedia are all valid use cases. MicroOS Desktop should just work “out of the box”.
19. Copyright © SUSE 2021 19 Now in [BETA] Available in MicroOS ISO Image 20210326 - or maybe a little later https://microos.opensuse.org/
20. Copyright © SUSE 2021 20 Thanks To Neal Gompa Dario Faggioli Sasi Olin Tommy, sy_be and others
21. Copyright © SUSE 2021 21 Join the Fun opensuse-kubic@opensuse.org - Mailing list #kubic on irc.freenode.net - IRC openSUSE:Factory & devel:kubic on build.opensuse.org - Build Service
22. Picture Thank you For more information, contact SUSE at: +1 800 796 3700 (U.S./Canada) +49 (0)911-740 53-0 (Worldwide) Maxfeldstrasse 5 90409 Nuremberg www.suse.com © 2020 SUSE LLC. All Rights Reserved. SUSE and the SUSE logo are registered trademarks of SUSE LLC in the United States and other countries. All third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.