rpm-ostree

• Git for filesystem trees!

• Directories

• /var: mutable and shared among deployments
• /etc: mutable and unique for each deployment. It's copied over the next deployment

• /usr: immutable and unique for each deployment

• /sysroot: the actual raw root mount-point of the HDD, which contains all the deployments

• /sysroot/ostree: Holds the base ostree system
• /sysroot/ostree/deploy: each system version
• /sysroot/ostree/var: shared files
• /sysroot/ostree/repo: shared commit objects (to avoid duplicate files)
• Package install methods
• Package layering: useful for drivers, libvirt, etc
• Flatpak: sandboxed apps
• Toolbox: primarily for CLI apps

status

• Show all deployments

rpm-ostree status

update

# check for updates in the base image
rpm-ostree update --check

upgrade

• A new etc directory is copied over to the new system
• Brand new usr directories are created
• var directory is shared
• Upgrade is automatically done by fedora, but you can do it manually with this command
• Updates the packages in the image

rpm-ostree upgrade

install

• Install a package as layered image on top of the base image
• Requires reboot

rpm-ostree install <package>

rebase

• Adopt a new base image

rpm-ostree rebase <branch>
rpm-ostree rebase fedora:fedora/39/x96_64/kinoite

rollback

• Rollback to a previous deployment

rpm-ostree rollback