What’s the difference between `rpm-ostree rebase` and `bootc switch`?

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What’s the difference between rpm-ostree rebase and bootc switch ?

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On Atomic Desktops, you can use the rpm-ostree rebase command to upgrade between major versions or to rebase to a different image-based variant of Fedora.
In order to switch between the different streams of Fedora CoreOS you can leverage the rpm-ostree rebase command.

Right now, bootc is a quite simple tool that is designed to do just a few things well. To use it, you most likely need to build an derived bootc container image first, or simply boot one of the base images.
bootc switch has the same effect as bootc upgrade; there is no semantic difference between the two other than changing the container image being tracked.

The main focus of Fedora/CentOS bootc is on bootc. However, the base image currently includes rpm-ostree which shares a lot of the same underlying code from the OSTree project.
rpm-ostree rebase will gracefully interact with a bootc system - at the current time they operate on shared state.

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Here is also another reply from Jorge Castro :

bootc switch will replace rpm-ostree rebase.

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Your question was:

We have given you a comprehensive answer and also as additional information:

Which is basically the same as the one from the Universal Blue forum.

FWIW, here’s a more on the topic.

It is supported to install and use rpm-ostree on a Fedora/CentOS bootc system, because the bootc and rpm-ostree projects share significant underlying code.

You can interchange rpm-ostree upgrade with bootc upgrade, etc; they currently perform the same operations in general.

However, any local state mutations such as package layering, removals, or enabling e.g. rpm-ostree initramfs --enable will cause bootc upgrade to error out.

Hence if you choose to use such features, then you will need to switch over to interacting with rpm-ostree going forward for updates.

In the more medium term, there are plans to extend dnf to also support client-side functionality.

This would build on more generic support for booting local builds for persistent layering.

As already mentioned, currently the only place you can effectively use the bootc commands in Fedora/Centos is the project-generated reference “base images” that are designed for this use case.

The rpm-ostree commands will continue to exist and operate in all Fedora image-based variants for the foreseeable future.

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Yes, I did appreciate your answer, made me learn things about the Fedora ecosystem ! :heart:

Also thanks for the additional information in your second reply, I’ll keep that in mind

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