Silverblue - for container-based software

[LoudLemur]

https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org/

Fedora Silverblue is an immutable desktop operating system. It aims to be extremely stable and reliable. It also aims to be an excellent platform for developers and for those using container-focused workflows.

Introduction to Silverblue
Silverblue is a variant of Fedora Workstation. It looks, feels and behaves like a regular desktop operating system, and the experience is similar to what you find with using a standard Fedora Workstation.

However, unlike other operating systems, Silverblue is immutable. This means that every installation is identical to every other installation of the same version. The operating system that is on disk is exactly the same from one machine to the next, and it never changes as it is used.

Silverblue’s immutable design is intended to make it more stable, less prone to bugs, and easier to test and develop. Finally, Silverblue’s immutable design also makes it an excellent platform for containerized applications as well as container-based software development. In each case, applications (apps) and containers are kept separate from the host system, improving stability and reliability.

Silverblue’s core technologies have some other helpful features. OS updates are fast and there’s no waiting around for them to install: just reboot as normal to start using the next version. With Silverblue, it is also possible to roll back to the previous version of the operating system, if something goes wrong.

There is a KDE version too.

[wind.gmbh]

If you are interested in that approach I very much recommend OpenSUSE MicroOS (for running containers) and OpenSUSE Kubic (for running Kubernetes).

MicroOS/ Kubic is in my opinion the best way to run container workloads in production.

Silverblue is a nice similar project, but OpenSUSE has pushed the concept of an immutable operating system much further already.

I did not use MicroOS Desktop (GNOME/ KDE available) yet, so this could be something Silverblue would be doing better.

[LoudLemur]

@wind-gmbh Thanks! Do you think that OpenSUSE MicroOS should be a candidate for the Operating System behind Cloudron?

[wind.gmbh]

@LoudLemur said in Silverblue - for container-based software:

@wind-gmbh Thanks! Do you think that OpenSUSE MicroOS should be a candidate for the Operating System behind Cloudron?

Big Yes and big No.

Yes, yes and yes regarding my statement that MicroOS is the best operating system for container workloads. Period.

But unfortunately No in regarding the ton of work that could be necessary to support Cloudron. Here a few aspects:

• MicroOS/ Kubic will use podman / CRI-O while Cloudron uses docker. While they are pretty much interchangeable you should expect some bumps down the road,
• MicroOS/ Kubic is based on OpenSUSE's astonishingly stable rolling release OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, with the advantage that a MicroOS host is not expected to need a lot of painful migration work and is very stable, if you put everything into containers. Cloudron however installs some things into the host itself (like nginx), that could break due to the rolling release nature of the distribution, if not containerized.
• If you come from a Debian-based distribution (like Ubuntu) or even a RHEL-like distribution, there are a few little things that are done differently and need to be adapted. Therefore it would be necessary to simultaneously maintain a lot more distribution specific code (like the installation script). People who installed Cloudron on Ubuntu will expect a supported way to upgrade to the next Ubuntu-LTS release, so two versions have to be maintained indefinitely.
• While Ubuntu LTS is as much common with beginners as it is in enterprise environments, (Open)SUSE is unfortunately not very common with beginners. So you may exclude some users, that are at a point where they are not ready to switch to an entirely different distribution family.

Could it be worth it in the long run anyway? Probably yes. Would it be a lot of work? Probably also yes.

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If you want to understand more about MicroOS' advantages and limitations, I do recommend their Design page.

[robi]

@wind-gmbh since Cloudron OS level upgrades are either automated in the OS or done by restoring from backup to a new host OS, the migration is fairly bulletproof as it's the Apps + Data we care about, not so much the OS.

[fbartels]

@wind-gmbh said in Silverblue - for container-based software:

But unfortunately No in regarding the ton of work that could be necessary to support Cloudron.

There is another important aspect as to why Ubuntu is the underlying platform for Cloudron. A lot (if not all) hosting providers are offering servers with this os preinstalled, which makes it easy to get started with Cloudon. If MicroOS would be the (only) supported choice then Cloudron users would be limited to hosting options which either provide it by default, or allow admins to install their own os (which could be a challenge for some).

If I remember correctly both Nebulon and Girish are former Suse employees, so I'd wager they would be biased towards MicroOS otherwise