Development work on "Atomic Workstation"

For some background, see:

• https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Workstation/AtomicWorkstation
• https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/WorkstationOstree

What this branch does implement a Jenkins job in CentOS CI that combines baseline Fedora 25 content with an overlay of content that auto-builds packages from git of some key projects like ostree/rpm-ostree.

High level design

The goal of the system is to be a workstation, using rpm-ostree for the base OS, and a combination of Docker and Flatpak containers, as well as virtualization tools such as Vagrant.

Status

This project is actively maintained and is ready for use by sophisticated and interested users, but not ready for widespread promotion.

Installing

Important! Don't choose auto-partitioning in the below installer ISO. You need to change /home to be /var/home. A bit more information in this known issue.

There is an installer ISO available, and it's been tested to work on bare metal. Also, If you install inside a VM, see this known bug regarding libvirt + networking.

Important issues:

• Anaconda autopartitoning - be sure to use /var/home instead of /home
• flatpak system repo

Using the system

First, try out rpm-ostree install to layer additional packages. For example, rpm-ostree install powerline.

Next, let's try flatpak. Before you do: There's a known flatpak issue on AtomicWS - run this workaround, which you only need to do once. After that, try flatpak.

If you are a developer for server applications, try oc cluster up to create a local OpenShift v3 cluster.

Finally, you'll likely want to make one or more "pet" Docker containers, potentially privileged, and use dnf/yum inside these. You can use e.g. -v /srv:/srv so these containers can share content with your host (such as git repositories). Note that if you want to share content between multiple Docker containers and the host (e.g. your desktop session), you should execute (once):

sudo chcon -R -h -t container_file_t /var/srv

Future work

• GNOME Software support for both rpm-ostree/flatpak and possibly docker
• ostree live updates for package layering
• automated tests that run on this content

Related projects

Here's a blog entry on using dnf+snapper(btrfs) for host updates. This is an implementation of client side snapshots. What makes rpm-ostree better here is that the system is composed (and ideally tested) server side.