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newsEasyOS and Bedrock Linux
I have posted about Guix, an application manager that can run in any Linux distribution, and provide an alternative repository:
- Decided not to integrate Guix into EasyOS — September 21, 2024
- Guix works with EasyOS — September 20, 2024
Nix package manager is similar. Guix and Nix install packages
that run as though they are native apps, with full access to the
filesystem and I/O.
Forum member Caramel investigated Nix, see here:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=8904
AppImages and Flatpaks also behave like native apps, though the Flatpak sandbox can sometimes make this difficult.
Running apps in a container or VM (virtual machine), on the otherhand, is an isolated environment. Apps do not see the main filesystem and may have very limited I/O capability. It is possible to punch holes, for example could bind-mount /files inside the container or VM. But then, that's the whole idea; run the app securely, isolated from the rest of the system. Note also, some apps do not work properly in the container or VM environment, despite punching holes.
Now along comes Bedrock. It was forum member antithesis who mentioned Bedrock and (just now) got me interested in it:
https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=6592
What you do is bootup an installed Linux distribution, then run the Bedrock script. This "hijacks" the Linux distribution, moves it all to a different location, and replaces the main filesystem with its own. I have done this with EasyOS, and after being hijacked, everything was moved to /bedrock/strata/easyos
At first, I attempted with a normal EasyOS; however, Bedrock choked on the aufs layered filesystem. It wants a normal full installation, so I created a usb-stick with EasyOS fully installed, no SFS layers, no initrd. I then ran the Bedrock script and hijacking worked. Rebooted and got the normal EasyOS desktop. Almost everything works, except apps that require dbus coud not find the dbus socket -- should be able to sort that out.
Jesse at Distrowatch wrote a very nice review of Bedrock a couple of years ago:
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20210705#bedrock
Here is the Bedrock homepage:
What I can do next, is add another strata, say Alpine Linux, and install apps that will run just like native apps.
Very interesting; however, EasyOS as-is is not suitable. I need to create a variant that is only a full install, which would be an entirely different distro, going back to what Quicky Linux was. QV (Quantum Vis, or Quirky Void) is a full install -- might use that as the starting point, except build from Scarthgap and do not use btrfs.
Stay tuned!
Tags: easy