this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 18 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Immutable, not really a difference. Bad updates can still break the OS.

AB root, however, it would be much easier to fix, but would still be a manual process.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 10 points 4 months ago

Aren't most immutable Linux distros AB, almost by definition? If it's immutable, you can't update the system because it's immutable. If you make it mutable for updates, it's no longer immutable.

The process should be:

  1. Boot from A
  2. Install new version to B
  3. Reboot into B
  4. If unstable, go to 1
  5. If stable, repeat from 1, but with A and B swapped

That's how immutable systems work. The main alternative is a PXE system, and in that case you fix the image in one place and power cycle all your machines.

If you're mounting your immutable system as mutable for updates, congratulations, you have the worst of immutable and mutable systems and you deserve everything bad that happens because of it.

[–] brian@programming.dev 5 points 4 months ago

idk if it would be manual, isn't the point of ab root to rollback if it doesn't properly boot afterwards?

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Honestly if you're managing kernel and userspace remotely it's your own fault if you don't netboot. Or maybe Microsoft's don't know what the netboot situation looks like in windows land.