For some background, see:

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

(Note also this repo obsoletes https://pagure.io/atomic-ws)

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.

Updates not currently generated for Fedora 26

If you choose Fedora 26, note that Fedora is not currently shipping updates. For that, see atomic-ws.

Installing (do not use partitioning defaults!)

Important! Don't choose auto-partitioning in the below installer ISO; you currently can't use a separate /home partition, and Anaconda defaults to that. This will be fixed in Fedora 27; see this known issue as well as this anaconda PR.

There are ISOs available for Fedora 26 direct link and rawhide.

Important issues:

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

Installing inside an existing system

A really neat feature of OSTree is that you can parallel install inside your existing OS. Let's try that, we first make sure we have the ostree packages:

yum -y install ostree ostree-grub2

Next, we add /ostree/repo to the filesystem:

ostree admin init-fs /

Add a remote which points to the Fedora Rawhide content:

ostree remote add --set=gpg-verify=false fedora-ws-rawhide https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/compose/ostree/rawhide/

Pull down the content (you can interrupt and restart this):

ostree --repo=/ostree/repo pull fedora-ws-rawhide:fedora/rawhide/x86_64/workstation

Initialize an "os" for this, which acts as a state root.

ostree admin os-init fedora

For EFI systems: currently ostree uses the presence of /boot/grub2/grub.cfg to detect a BIOS system, but that can be present on systems booted with EFI as well. If you boot with EFI (/sys/firmware/efi exists), then you need to move /boot/grub2/grub.cfg aside:

mv /boot/grub2/grub.cfg /boot/grub2/grub.cfg.bak

Since this file is not used on a EFI system, this won't break the operation of your current system. While you are at it, back up your existing grub config:

cp /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg.bak

Deploy; we use enforcing=0 to avoid SELinux issues for now, and --karg=rghb=0 to avoid a hang with Plymouth (these aren't needed if deploying Fedora 26 currently).

ostree admin deploy --os=fedora --karg-proc-cmdline --karg=enforcing=0 --karg=rhgb=0 fedora-ws-rawhide:fedora/rawhide/x86_64/workstation

To initialize this root, you'll need to copy over your /etc/fstab, /etc/locale.conf, /etc/default/grub at least, along with the ostree remote that we added:

for i in /etc/fstab /etc/default/grub /etc/locale.conf /etc/ostree/remotes.d/fedora-ws-rawhide.conf ; do cp $i /ostree/deploy/fedora/deploy/$checksum.0/$i; done

If you have a separate /home mount point, you'll need to change that fstab copy to refer to /var/home. If you don't have a separate /home mount point, then you need to make sure that a symlink will be created:

echo 'L /var/home - - - - ../sysroot/home' > /ostree/deploy/fedora/deploy/$checksum.0/etc/tmpfiles.d/00rpm-ostree.conf

You'll also need to copy your user entry from /etc/passwd, /etc/group, and /etc/shadow into the new /etc/, and add yourself to the wheel group in /etc/group. Don't copy just copy these files literally, however, since the system users and groups won't be the same.

For BIOS systems: while ostree regenerated the bootloader configuration, it writes config into /boot/loader/grub.cfg. On a current grubby system, you'll need to copy that version over:

cp /boot/loader/grub.cfg /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Migrating between OSTree repos

Enable the 26/27 remotes:

ostree remote add --if-not-exists --gpg-import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-26-primary fedora-ws-26 https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/compose/ostree/26
ostree remote add --if-not-exists --gpg-import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-27-primary fedora-ws-27 https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/compose/ostree/rawhide

Rebase to rawhide:

rpm-ostree rebase fedora-ws-27:fedora/rawhide/x86_64/workstation

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
• automated tests that run on this content