4 ms·
Sounds like a combination of FS-level VC (implemented several times) and GoboLinux or Zero-Install (probably more Zero-Install.)
by rmaccloy 17y ago
Sounds like a combination of FS-level VC (implemented several times) and GoboLinux or Zero-Install (probably more Zero-Install.)
- sandGorgon 17y agoTalking of Gobo and 0install - I am surprised nobody has mentioned Nix (http://nixos.org/ http://nixos.org/). The aspect of Nix which is relevant to "versioned OS" is the package configuration database which can be snapshotted (http://lwn.net/Articles/337677/ http://lwn.net/Articles/337677/ ). In this approach, the static parts of a configuration —software packages, configuration files, control scripts— are built from pure functions, i.e., the results depend solely on the specified inputs of the function and are immutable. As a result, realising a system configuration becomes deterministic and reproducible. Upgrading to a new configuration is mostly atomic and doesn't overwrite anything of the old configuration, thus enabling rollbacks. I recently wanted to install the same configuration as my Ubuntu laptop, on a desktop. The thread to list manually-installed packages in Ubuntu is huge and has no deterministic answer. Perhaps, a manager like Nix could have accorded me this flexibility.
- gnosis 17y agoThere are some great comments in that LWN article, and I encourage everyone here to read them. For reference, here are a couple of relevant links to some similar package and configuration managers: vesta: http://www.vestasys.org http://www.vestasys.org store: http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc.html http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~arnej/store/storedoc.html