v3 --> v4 upgrade path?
Will there be a way to upgrade from BlendOS v3 to BlendOS v4?
I ask because the docs I'm finding online say "rolling release", but the v4 info I can find says it needs to be installed on top of a clean Arch install.
I'd very much like to be done with the os-reinstall circus, and I also don't want to spend time building atop v3 if doing an OS re-install will be required for v4+ rolling release.
Thoughts?
17 Replies
Arch is rolling release
Not this (for now)
There is no upgrade path unfortunately
Not an official one anyway
Considering the way immutability works has completely changed
Manually setting up the hooks and akshara will break your system
Solution
So you have to reinstall (you should have backups of your data anyway)
And you speak like v4 hasn’t come out
It’s been out for ages
Gotcha. Both 9to5linux (https://9to5linux.com/first-look-at-blendos-a-blend-of-arch-linux-fedora-linux-and-ubuntu) and Distrowatch (https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20230313) among others state that BlendOS "follows a rolling release model", so this is an unfortunate regression from my perspective.
9to5Linux
First Look at blendOS: A Blend of Arch Linux, Fedora Linux, and Ubu...
blendOS is a Linux distribution based on Arch Linux that aims to stop distro hopping as it lets you use other popular distros like Ubuntu.
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
News and feature lists of Linux and BSD distributions.
That makes sense. Are you using "immuteability" as a distinct concept from "declarative" here?
The issue isn't the data. It's all the non-declarative configuration necessary to have a working system.
Less "data" and more "which apps get pinned to the quick access bar, wifi connections, night mode settings, and all the myriad other tweaks that take a particular OS from stock to customized for my workflows". This is nontrivial even on declarative systems, and I was really hoping that BlendOS would further reduce this overhead.
Do you know of any unofficial efforts towards an upgrade path?
Respectfully, four months is...a fairly short period of time.
I've watched a lot of distros rise and fall, and I have learned that the first few months are a good time to sit back and watch the bugs emerge and get fixed. I'm looking at v4 now because it's been enough time that it probably won't become entirely unusable just from being used normally for web browsing, email, shell scripting, and non-OS software testing.
The online documentation is incredibly sparse, and searching for solutions is rather painful at the moment. Give it a year or three, and I hope that will change. BlendOS has a lot of promise, which is why I'm asking about the stuff that makes or breaks this for the average user.
I am not an average user. I am a system administrator, in the "was building servers before the internet" meaning of that title. I am testing BlendOS as a strong candidate for the desktop environment in my organization, but most of the people are nontechnical and would be extremely confused by how sparse the documentation is at the current moment. I'd like to help change that, but I'm a very different mindset when it comes to longevity. Four years is a short time, and four months is barely a blink.
the arch base is rolling release as always (so likely a misinterpretation there), it's just this blendOS point release that changes quite a bit
you could ask other members
it's not trying to be NixOS, it has to still be simple an deployable
even the immutability has changed because the overlayFS isn't crummy and broken
arch packages mean we have to rebuild everything
so now it does
respectfully nix files use an arcane laanguage nobody cares to understand
how do we tack on more features while maintaining YAML simplicity
also about the docs, it's basically only me writing these 😭
I don't know what people really want out of them yet
I just cover whatever I think is important
a lot of the nitty gritty can be ripped from the archwiki
Would you be willing to explain this further? How does immutability relate to the overlayFS?
Yeah, the nix stuffs is pretty darn unapproachable if you're not making it a focus of study. I'm looking at BlendOS as an alternative to putting everyone on NixOS and just telling them to deal XD
My goal with asking questions is to also write docs. I appreciate you taking the time to discuss.
yeah this is the hard one, like I know what I want to know, but not everyone has had their head buried in Linux since the early '90, so...the questions I ask probably have nothing to do with what people in general want to know.
Dunno. But I intend to find out. Gonna take me a bit to get up to speed on how it all fits together, tho. Thanks for your patience with this process.
ﾑ丂ｲ乇尺ﾉ丂ズ received a thank you Jao!
Easier to discuss with @Rudra though
Immutability - blendOS
How blendOS's immutability works
Adapted from a presentation Rudra gave
Nice, I'll ingest that and ask more questions after. Thanks.
Oi @ﾑ丂ｲ乇尺ﾉ丂ズ any idea why I can't fork the https://git.blendos.co/blendOS/image-builder repo within the gitlab interface? I guess I could clone and push to an unlinked repo, but I'd like to not orphan my work on this...
(username is
jakimfett over there too, just for reference)Hmm, it's not just
image-builder I can't fork website either.
Ah, here we go...useful error message achieved:
So...should I stand up my own GitLab instance for this? Or what's the recommended path to start contributing to the docs etc?did you read the signup text
you need to verify your account with the admins before you can fork or make projects
that's me :)
limit updated
try again
Hmm...I didn't actually see the signup text, maybe because I created my login after clicking the "edit" button on a doc instead of via the login page?
Seems to be working, thank you!
ﾑ丂ｲ乇尺ﾉ丂ズ received a thank you Jao!