Bootc This Week - 2024-10-18

Bootc Core Releases :dove:

Colin Walters says

Release v1.1.0 · containers/bootc · GitHub is released

Bootc Meetings and Status Updates :thermometer:

Jason Brooks reports

This week, Adrian joined us to talk about “Bootc This Week.” Meeting notes from this week’s meeting: meeting-notes/2024-10-15.md · main · fedora / bootc / Issue Tracker · GitLab

At next week’s meeting (Tuesday, 14:00 UTC at https://meet.google.com/poh-xmxm-qyc) we’re going to have a focused working session on base image building.

Derived OS Releases :building_construction:

imbev says

Hello everyone, I’ve recently become aware of Charles/0xC4aE1e5’s bootc-related projects.

The first of these is Calcite. Quoting the README:

Calcite is an AlmaLinux bootc-based system with GNOME. It is designed for AlmaLinux and others to easily extend it or even just rebrand it, which is why this project doesn’t change branding or settings, and is licensed under the 0BSD.

The second project is Netherite, a security-hardened desktop system with a name inspired by a unbreakable material in the game Minecraft.

In contrast to secureblue, Netherite is based on an EL-base of Calcite/AlmaLinux bootc images.

HeliumOS (website)

An atomic desktop operating system for your devices.

imbev announces

Current state of HeliumOS on Nvidia

HeliumOS aims to work out of the box on a variety of devices. Nvidia GPUs typically complicate the installation and setup of Linux distributions. HeliumOS would like to offer a simple solution, however there are some difficulties:

  • Proprietary vs Open Source drivers: Licensing concerns prevent HeliumOS from distributing bootc images that contain the proprietary Nvidia drivers. Fortunately, Nvidia has released the most recently versions of its drivers under an open source license.
  • GitHub Actions vs Local builds: HeliumOS bootc images are currently built using podman running within a GitHub Actions pipeline. For reasons undetermined, the Nvidia kernel modules from builds of HeliumOS will fail to function properly if the image is built with GitHub Actions. Builds of the same Containerfile with the same context on a local device work as expected. If you can help us resolve this quandary, please let us know! #1 - Nvidia drivers not loading with HeliumOS images built via CI - HeliumOS/bugs - Codeberg.org
  • HeliumOS Variant vs Layering: In the event that HeliumOS is unable to build and distribute a variant containing Nvidia drivers, hope is not lost. Although not currently ready, there may be a solution similar to GitHub - ericcurtin/dnf-bootc: DNF Bootc Plugin that allows users to “layer” their own changes on top of HeliumOS images. If this becomes necessary and feasible, HeliumOS will provide a simple way for users to layer the proper Nvidia driver installation and configuration.

Projects, Experiments, and Demos :artificial_satellite:

mrguitar says

New Blog on using bootc for desktops

bootc for Desktops?? Tell me more! – mrguitardotnet

I have really enjoyed using & automating fedora-bootc for a number of uses here at home and I wanted to try extending that to my new desktop system. The result: it’s amazing. I certainly wouldn’t encourage everyone to go down this path, as many users will be better served with the Atomic Desktops owning the maintenance. In the end, I was able to answer the question that this is viable and works really really well.

Tutorials and Guidance :compass:

Adrian Edwards says

Looks like the Red Hat blog has a new post about debugging image mode hosts: Debugging image mode hosts

Thanks DuckDuckGo for having a “this week” option in the time filters haha

That’s all folks!

If you have made progress on a project that you want to share you can learn how to submit an entry and your update could be featured in the next issue of BCTW.

See you next week, and be sure to stop by #bootc:fedoraproject.org to post your updates and hang out with the community!

4 Likes

Awesome to see both the progress in bootc, and that it’s being consumed by downstream communities.

@mrguitar Thanks for the blog as well – I just upgraded my laptop to “traditional mode” Fedora… for the umpteenth time. Of course it was boring; everything went well and it continues to chug along. So I need to take on a challenge in making it work off bootc. Now I can work off this blog I hope!

I’m not around in Fedora nearly as much as I used to be, mainly because I manage a much large organization inside Red Hat these days. That organization contains teams working on leadership, services, quality, and infrastructure in Fedora – along with those working on bootc and container tools and much, much more. So I’m still very interested in Fedora having a leading-edge / cutting-edge stature in bootable containers. Ultimately I think bootc is a great way to change the unit of software we deliver for more predictability but also potentially faster iteration.

1 Like