Video Recording of openSUSE Conference session which introduced the project
Core Project
MicroOS (and it's Kubernetes focused sister, Kubic) is an exciting distribution that takes much of the cool stuff we're doing in Tumbleweed, adds solutions to the problems of updating a running system, and is becoming the perfect base system for running containers.
But in openSUSE, running server stuff is only half the fun.
Why should servers be the only platform enjoying automatic, atomic, "auto-rollbackable" system updates?
Surely desktop users want to be lazy like server admins also?
Can the tools and approaches implemented in MicroOS help create the desktop distribution of the future?
Let's find out!
This Project will try to build, test, and introduce to the world the 'openSUSE MicroOS Desktop', a desktop focused variant of MicroOS based on Tumbleweed.
Sub Projects (Hackweek 18/19)
BPF powered Tor networking for flatpaks
A BPF program which can we attached to flatpaks (via CGROUP_BPF, "cgroup/skb" section) which will redirect all the egress traffic from the given flatpak to Tor network. Such a program should be trivial to write, but it will be a good alternative for running whole virtualized systems like Tails or Whonix.
openSUSE Flatpaks
in the similar way Fedora is doing that - flatpaks based on OCI images. Those OCI images could be build with kiwi. That approach gives us benefits from flatpak, but at the same time we avoid bundling libraries in each flatpak image, instead we reuse our packaging and good model of handling dependencies globally for all the software.
Hackweek 20
During Hackweek 20 (March 22-26 2021) I'm going to be working again on getting MicroOS Desktop polished and ready for primetime use.
For those interested in joining this Hackweek, I'd recommend watching the following videos to catch up with the Project's current status
Richard talking about MicroOS Generally and the Desktop current status at FOSDEM 2021
Dario talking about how he uses MicroOS Desktop already as his daily driver
Most of the Hackweek will be addressing the problems with the current builds and inventing solutions for the current main sticking points of getting MicroOS's config 'perfect' out of the box, such as configuring Flatpak with Flathub and installing some Flatpaks by default.
People can join the kubic@lists.opensuse.org mailing list to discuss issues asynchronously
We will also be on #microos-desktop on irc.freenode.org to talk to us via chat
And we'll also be on video chat on meet.opensuse.org/MicroOSDesktop as often as we can. Specific 'open hours' may be announced on the MicroOS Twitter Account
Hackweek 20 Results
After Hackweek 20 the GNOME variant of the MicroOS Desktop finally achieved [BETA] status, meaning its now feature complete and ready for most people to use, with the caveat of a small possibility of bugs/issues which will be fixed quickly.
Looking for hackers with the skills:
This project is part of:
Hack Week 18 Hack Week 19 Hack Week 20 Hack Week 21
Activity
Comments
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almost 5 years ago by mrostecki | Reply
I would like to join that project and propose two "subprojects" I would like to work on:
- A BPF program which can we attached to flatpaks (via CGROUP_BPF, "cgroup/skb" section) which will redirect all the egress traffic from the given flatpak to Tor network. Such a program should be trivial to write, but it will be a good alternative for running whole virtualized systems like Tails or Whonix.
- openSUSE flatpaks - in the similar way Fedora is doing that - flatpaks based on OCI images. Those OCI images could be build with kiwi. That approach gives us benefits from flatpak, but at the same time we avoid bundling libraries in each flatpak image, instead we reuse our packaging and good model of handling dependencies globally for all the software.
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almost 5 years ago by dfaggioli | Reply
I was wondering, how does one do development, in an environment like this. I mean, the classic dev cycle of a good old (say, for instance) C project where even just to build test it (perhaps with your changes), you'd need to install a bunch of libfoo-devel, libbar-devel, libfoo-bar-devel, etc., which I don't think one wants to install on the "main OS" and, e.g., have to reboot each time that building with a new dependency is necessary. Libvirt, QEMU, Xen could be examples, arbitrarily chosen just because they're the ones I deal with sort of on a daily basis, but I think there may well be others.
My wild guess would be that a "toolbox like" [1] approach could work? That is, having a simple way to spin up a container inside which one can build his project? Dependencies, one would install them inside the container manually, or we can allow for stashing a (or more) "dockerfile(s)" somewhere, that can then be fine-tuned and reused...
If this makes any sort of sense, I would like to join the project with the aim of testing such a workflow, give feedback about it and, hopefully, improve it.
I feel like adding that I have very few experience with MicroOS/Kubic, as well as with containers in general. And although learning new things is indeed the purpose of Hackweek, I'm not sure how far I'll be able to get.
Anyway, let me know what you think. :-)
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almost 5 years ago by mrostecki | Reply
That's an interesting problem to solve and I was also thinking about it, but didn't come up with any solution.
But yes, working on something "toolbox like" based on podman and container images sounds like a good approach to me.
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almost 5 years ago by dfaggioli | Reply
Ok. So I guess I'm actually joining, I will look into how toolbox actually works and see if I can come up with something similar (but different! :-D)
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almost 5 years ago by mrostecki | Reply
Can't we actually use toolbox and contribute to it if you are not going to find any big disadvantages of that project? It's under "containers" organization on Github - https://github.com/containers/toolbox, so IMO we shouldn't consider it to be a "Red Hat project" - SUSE contributes to various github.com/containers projects too. It seems to use podman and it doesn't seem to depend on (rpm-)ostree, so it should work on openSUSE just fine.
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almost 5 years ago by mrostecki | Reply
On the other hand, seems like there is a huge rewrite in Go pending https://github.com/containers/toolbox/pull/318
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almost 5 years ago by RBrownSUSE | Reply
Our toolbox we already have is already better than most other distros toolboxes..it does everything I'd ever want (except one thing..which I will fix one day) but hey if others want to look at it I dont object :)
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almost 5 years ago by RBrownSUSE | Reply
Hi all - anyone working on this project, I'm hanging out in #microos-desktop on irc.freenode.org now - we should use that to coordinate/chat :)
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almost 5 years ago by RBrownSUSE | Reply
Current Steps In Progress at Time of Writing:
- Submit new skelcd-control-MicroOS to YaST>Factory
- Submit new microos-patterns to Factory
- Ensure product builds media with new patterns-microos-[gnome|kde]-desktop patterns
At this point MicroOS ISO's should have both a KDE and GNOME system role in 'Alpha' status
Steps that must be accomplished to reach 'Beta'
- Some openQA testing
- Basic working functionality like logging in, application installation, etc
Steps to remove the ugly 'Alpha' or 'Beta' flag from the installation
- openQA testing for boot, login, application installation and some apps running
- No unexpected reboots/sensible rebootmgr configuration
- Notification to the user when a reboot is required
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almost 5 years ago by RBrownSUSE | Reply
> Steps to remove the ugly 'Alpha' or 'Beta' flag from the installation
- Both KDE and GNOME should have an optimised package list from the hacked together examples right now
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almost 5 years ago by RBrownSUSE | Reply
> Current Steps In Progress at Time of Writing: > > * Submit new skelcd-control-MicroOS to YaST>Factory > * Submit new microos-patterns to Factory > * Ensure product builds media with new patterns-microos-[gnome|kde]-desktop patterns
https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/773663 https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/773664 https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/773665
Above is all otw to Factory, to be staged and adjusted there
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almost 5 years ago by dfaggioli | Reply
Update from me: - we're discussing (in opensuse-kubic@opensuse.org) whether/how to change our toolbox image in order for it to fulfill the requirements of https://github.com/containers/toolbox - Thorsted has pushed some of those changes to devel:kubic:containers (see: https://build.opensuse.org/package/rdiff/devel:kubic:containers/opensuse-toolbox-image?linkrev=base&rev=7 ) - I've worked on making our toolbox a little bit more comfortable to use for development: https://github.com/dfaggioli/microos-toolbox/tree/user-mode https://github.com/kubic-project/microos-toolbox/pull/2
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almost 5 years ago by dfaggioli | Reply
[Sorry for posting this twice, but the previous comment I wrote is barely readable! :-/]
Update from me:
we're discussing (on opensuse-kubic-AT-opensuse-DOT-org) whether / how to change our toolbox image in order for it to fulfill the requirements of containers/toolbox
Thorsten has pushed some of those changes to devel:kubic:containers already (see: here)
I've worked on making our toolbox a little bit more comfortable to use for development:
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almost 4 years ago by RBrownSUSE | Reply
Hackweek 20 went well, briefest summary is currently on twitter, and will be included in the Lightning talks on Friday
https://twitter.com/sysrich/status/1375443718132613120
Similar Projects
YQPkg - Bringing the Single Package Selection Back to Life by shundhammer
tl;dr
Rip out the high-level YQPackageSelector widget from YaST and make it a standalone Qt program without any YaST dependencies.
See section "Result" at the bottom for the current status after the hack week.
Current Status
See the development status issue at the GitHub repo.
tl;dr: It's usable now with all the key features.
It does real package installation / removal / update with reasonable user feedback.
The Past and the Present
We used to have and still have a powerful software selection with the YaST sw_single module (and the YaST patterns counterpart): You can select software down to the package level, you can easily select one of many available package versions, you can select entire patterns - or just view them and pick individual packages from patterns.
You can search packages based on name, description, "requires" or "provides" level, and many more things.
The Future
YaST is on its way out, to be replaced by the new Agama installer and Cockpit for system administration. Those tools can do many things, but fine-grained package selection is not among them. And there are also no other Open Source tools available for that purpose that even come close to the YaST package selection.
Many aspects of YaST have become obsolete over the years; many subsystems now come with a good default configuration, or they can configure themselves automatically. Just think about sound or X11 configuration; when did you last need to touch them?
For others, the desktops bring their own tools (e.g. printers), or there are FOSS configuration tools (NetworkManager, BlueMan). Most YaST modules are no longer needed, and for many others there is a replacement in tools like Cockpit.
But no longer having a powerful fine-grained package selection like in YaST sw_single will hurt. Big time. At least until there is an adequate replacement, many users will want to keep it.
The Idea
YaST sw_single always revolved around a powerful high-level widget on the abstract UI level. Libyui has low-level widgets like YPushButton, YCheckBox, YInputField, more advanced ones like YTable, YTree; and some few very high-level ones like YPackageSelector and YPatternSelector that do the whole package selection thing alone, working just on the libzypp level and changing the status of packages or patterns there.
For the YaST Qt UI, the YQPackageSelector / YQPatternSelector widgets work purely on the Qt and libzypp level; no other YaST infrastructure involved, in particular no Ruby (or formerly YCP) interpreter, no libyui-level widgets, no bindings between Qt / C++ and Ruby / YaST-core, nothing. So it's not too hard to rip all that part out of YaST and create a standalone program from it.
For the NCurses UI, the NCPackageSelector / NCPatternSelector create a lot of libyui widgets (inheriting YWidget / NCWidget) and use a lot of libyui calls to glue them together; and all that of course still needs a lot of YaST / libyui / libyui-ncurses infrastructure. So NCurses is out of scope here.
Preparatory Work: Initializing the Package Subsystem
To see if this is feasible at all, the existing UI examples needed some fixing to check what is needed on that level. That was the make-or-break decision: Would it be realistically possible to set the needed environment in libzypp up (without being stranded in the middle of that task alone at the end of the hack week)?
Yes, it is: That part is already working:
https://github.com/yast/yast-ycp-ui-bindings/pull/71
Update Haskell ecosystem in Tumbleweed to GHC-9.10.x by psimons
Description
We are currently at GHC-9.8.x, which a bit old. So I'd like to take a shot at the latest version of the compiler, GHC-9.10.x. This is gonna be interesting because the new version requires major updates to all kinds of libraries and base packages, which typically means patching lots of packages to make them build again.
Goals
Have working builds of GHC-9.10.x and the required Haskell packages in 'devel:languages:haskell` so that we can compile:
git-annexpandocxmonadcabal-install
Resources
- https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/devel:languages:haskell/
- https://github.com/opensuse-haskell/configuration/
- #discuss-haskell
- https://www.twitch.tv/peti343
New migration tool for Leap by lkocman
Update
I will call a meeting with other interested people at 11:00 CET https://meet.opensuse.org/migrationtool
Description
SLES 16 plans to have no yast tool in it. Leap 16 might keep some bits, however, we need a new tool for Leap to SLES migration, as this was previously handled by a yast2-migration-sle
Goals
A tool able to migrate Leap 16 to SLES 16, I would like to cover also other scenarios within openSUSE, as in many cases users would have to edit repository files manually.
- Leap -> Leap n+1 (minor and major version updates)
- Leap -> SLES docs
- Leap -> Tumbleweed
- Leap -> Slowroll
- Leap Micro -> Leap Micro n+1 (minor and major version updates)
- Leap Micro -> MicroOS
Hackweek 24 update
Marcela and I were working on the project from Brno coworking as well as finalizing pieces after the hackweek. We've tested several migration scenarios and it works. But it needs further polishing and testing.
Projected was renamed to opensuse-migration-tool and was submitted to devel project https://build.opensuse.org/requests/1227281
Repository
https://github.com/openSUSE/opensuse-migration-tool
Out of scope is any migration to an immutable system. I know Richard already has some tool for that.
Resources
Tracker for yast stack reduction code-o-o/leap/features#173 YaST stack reduction
Create openSUSE images for Arm/RISC-V boards by avicenzi
Project Description
Create openSUSE images (or test generic EFI images) for Arm and/or RISC-V boards that are not yet supported.
Goal for this Hackweek
Create bootable images of Tumbleweed for SBCs that currently have no images available or are untested.
Consider generic EFI images where possible, as some boards can hold a bootloader.
Document in the openSUSE Wiki how to flash and use the image for a given board.
Boards that I have around and there are no images:
- Rock 3B
- Nano PC T3 Plus
- Lichee RV D1
- StartFive VisionFive (has some image needs testing)
Hack Week 22
Hack Week 21
Resources
Enlightenment in Leap 16 by simotek
Description
Get the Enlightenment stack + X11 building and running on the Leap 16 codebase.
Goals
- Get enlightenment / terminology compiling for Leap 16
- Test that they are running correctly in a Virtual Machine.
Resources
Update Haskell ecosystem in Tumbleweed to GHC-9.10.x by psimons
Description
We are currently at GHC-9.8.x, which a bit old. So I'd like to take a shot at the latest version of the compiler, GHC-9.10.x. This is gonna be interesting because the new version requires major updates to all kinds of libraries and base packages, which typically means patching lots of packages to make them build again.
Goals
Have working builds of GHC-9.10.x and the required Haskell packages in 'devel:languages:haskell` so that we can compile:
git-annexpandocxmonadcabal-install
Resources
- https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/devel:languages:haskell/
- https://github.com/opensuse-haskell/configuration/
- #discuss-haskell
- https://www.twitch.tv/peti343
Tumbleweed on Mars-CM (RISC-V board) by ph03nix
RISC-V is awesome, Tumbleweed is awesome, chocolate cake is awesome. I'm planning to combine all of them in one project.
Project Description
I recently purchased a MILK-V Mars CM and managed to setup it up already using Debian Linux. My project for this Hackweek is to see how far I can get to run Tumbleweed on this compute module board.
Goal for this Hackweek
- Run Tumbleweed on the Compute Module
Resources
- http://milkv.io/mars-cm
- https://en.opensuse.org/HCL:VisionFive2
Write a shell extension for GNOME by tdz
Description
I usually do kernel and systems programming. This project is about learning more about the userspace and application side. Writing an extension to gnome-shell seems like a good place to start. The GNOME shell is scriptable via JavaScript and a number of such extension is available from upstream.
On X11, there used to be a toy rsp. screensaver called XPenguins. After the desktop being idle for some time, it sent penguins falling down the screen and walking along window borders. It doesn't work any longer with Wayland-based compositing, but re-implementing it as extension for the GNOME shell might be possible. There already existed a port around a decade ago that could serve as starting point.
Goals
- Learn about how shell extensions work and how to write one
- See if XPenguins can be converted
- If successful, try to upstream the result
Resources
Research openqa-trigger-from-obs and openqa-trigger-from-ibs-plugin by qwang
Description
openqa-trigger-from-obs project is a framework that OSD is using it to automatically sync the defined images and repositories from OBS/IBS to its assets for testing. This framework very likely will be used for the synchronize to each location's openqa include openqa.qa2.suse.asia Beijing local procy scc scc-proxy.suse.asia(although it's not a MUST to our testing) it's now rewriting requests to openqa.qa2.suse.asia instead of openqa.suse.de, the assets/repo should be consistent the format Beijing local openQA is maintaining an own script but still need many manually activities when new build comes, and not consistent to OSD, that will request many test code change due to CC network change
Goals
Research this framework in case it will be re-used for Beijing local openQA, and will need to be setup and maintained by ourselves
Resources
https://github.com/os-autoinst/openqa-trigger-from-obs/tree/master https://gitlab.suse.de/openqa/openqa-trigger-from-ibs-plugin
beijing :rainbow machine
Implement a full OBS api client in Rust by nbelouin
Description
I recently started to work on tooling for OBS using rust, to do so I started a Rust create to interact with OBS API, I only implemented a few routes/resources for what I needed. What about making it a full fledged OBS client library.
Goals
- Implement more routes/resources
- Implement a test suite against the actual OBS implementation
- Bonus: Create an osc like cli in Rust using the library
Resources
- https://github.com/suse-edge/obs-tools/tree/main/obs-client
- https://api.opensuse.org/apidocs/
Switch software-o-o to parse repomd data by hennevogel
Currently software.opensuse.org search is using the OBS binary search for everything, even for packages inside the openSUSE distributions. Let's switch this to use repomd data from download.opensuse.org
Learn about OSB and contribute to `kustomize` and `k9s` packages to add ARM arch by dpock
Description
There are already k9s and kustomize packages that exist for openSUSE today. These could be used as the source for these binaries in our rancher projects. By using them we would benefit from CVE fixes included in our distribution of the packages not in cluded upstream. However they are not providing arm package builds which are required.
Goals
- [ ] Update the kustomize package in OBS to use the newest version and send change request
Resources
- k9s: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/openSUSE:Factory/k9s
- kustomize: https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/openSUSE:Factory/kustomize
- Learning Docs: https://confluence.suse.com/display/packaging/Training%2C+Talks+and+Videos
Explore the integration between OBS and GitHub by pdostal
Project Description
The goals:
1) When GitHub pull request is created or modified the OBS project will be forked and the build results reported back to GitHub. 2) When new version of the GitHub project will be published the OBS will redownload the source and rebuild the project.
Goal for this Hackweek
Do as much as possible, blog about it and maybe use it another existing project.
Resources
- The Blog post
- Issue: poo#123858 - build.opensuse.org: /usr/lib/obs/service//go_modules.service No such file or directory
Explore simple and distro indipendent declarative Linux starting on Tumbleweed or Arch Linux by janvhs
Description
Inspired by mkosi the idea is to experiment with a declarative approach of defining Linux systems. A lot of tools already make it possible to manage the systems infrastructure by using description files, rather than manual invocation. An example for this are systemd presets for managing enabled services or the /etc/fstab file for describing how partitions should be mounted.
If we would take inspiration from openSUSE MicroOS and their handling of the /etc/ directory, we could theoretically use systemd-sysupdate to swap out the /usr/ partition and create an A/B boot scheme, where the /usr/ partition is always freshly built according to a central system description. In the best case it would be possible to still utilise snapshots, but an A/B root scheme would be sufficient for the beginning. This way you could get the benefit of NixOS's declarative system definition, but still use the distros package repositories and don't have to deal with the overhead of Flakes or the Nix language.
Goals
- A simple and understandable system
- Check fitness of
mkosior write a simple extensible image builder tool for it - Create a declarative system specification
- Create a system with swappable
/usr/partition - Create an A/B root scheme
- Swap to the new system without reboot (kexec?)
Resources
- Ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while
- https://0pointer.net/blog/fitting-everything-together.html
- GNOME OS
- MicroOS
- systemd mkosi
- Vanilla OS
Testing and adding GNU/Linux distributions on Uyuni by juliogonzalezgil
Join the Gitter channel! https://gitter.im/uyuni-project/hackweek
Uyuni is a configuration and infrastructure management tool that saves you time and headaches when you have to manage and update tens, hundreds or even thousands of machines. It also manages configuration, can run audits, build image containers, monitor and much more!
Currently there are a few distributions that are completely untested on Uyuni or SUSE Manager (AFAIK) or just not tested since a long time, and could be interesting knowing how hard would be working with them and, if possible, fix whatever is broken.
For newcomers, the easiest distributions are those based on DEB or RPM packages. Distributions with other package formats are doable, but will require adapting the Python and Java code to be able to sync and analyze such packages (and if salt does not support those packages, it will need changes as well). So if you want a distribution with other packages, make sure you are comfortable handling such changes.
No developer experience? No worries! We had non-developers contributors in the past, and we are ready to help as long as you are willing to learn. If you don't want to code at all, you can also help us preparing the documentation after someone else has the initial code ready, or you could also help with testing :-)
The idea is testing Salt and Salt-ssh clients, but NOT traditional clients, which are deprecated.
To consider that a distribution has basic support, we should cover at least (points 3-6 are to be tested for both salt minions and salt ssh minions):
- Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
- Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap scritp, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)
- Package management (install, remove, update...)
- Patching
- Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
- Salt remote commands
- Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement
- Bonus point: sumaform enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/sumaform)
- Bonus point: Documentation (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni-docs)
- Bonus point: testsuite enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni/tree/master/testsuite)
If something is breaking: we can try to fix it, but the main idea is research how supported it is right now. Beyond that it's up to each project member how much to hack :-)
- If you don't have knowledge about some of the steps: ask the team
- If you still don't know what to do: switch to another distribution and keep testing.
This card is for EVERYONE, not just developers. Seriously! We had people from other teams helping that were not developers, and added support for Debian and new SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE Leap versions :-)
Pending
FUSS
FUSS is a complete GNU/Linux solution (server, client and desktop/standalone) based on Debian for managing an educational network.
https://fuss.bz.it/
Seems to be a Debian 12 derivative, so adding it could be quite easy.
[W]Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)[W]Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap script, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator) --> Working for all 3 options (salt minion UI, salt minion bootstrap script and salt-ssh minion from the UI).[W]Package management (install, remove, update...) --> Installing a new package works, needs to test the rest.[I]Patching (if patch information is available, could require writing some code to parse it, but IIRC we have support for Ubuntu already). No patches detected. Do we support patches for Debian at all?[W]Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)[W]Salt remote commands[ ]Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement
Switch software-o-o to parse repomd data by hennevogel
Currently software.opensuse.org search is using the OBS binary search for everything, even for packages inside the openSUSE distributions. Let's switch this to use repomd data from download.opensuse.org