The developers of the openSUSE project have presented the first release of a new edition of the openSUSE distribution kit - "Leap Micro", based on the developments of the MicroOS project. The openSUSE Leap Micro distribution is positioned as a community version of the commercial SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro 5.2, which explains the unusual first version number, 5.2, which was chosen to synchronize release numbering in both distributions. The openSUSE Leap Micro 5.2 release will be supported for 4 years.
Builds for x86_64 and ARM64 (Aarch64) architectures are available for download, supplied both with an installer (Offline builds, 370MB in size) and in the form of ready-made boot images: 570MB (preconfigured), 740MB (with Real-Time kernel) and 820MB. Images can run under Xen and KVM hypervisors, or on top of hardware, including Raspberry Pi boards. For configuration, you can use the cloud-init toolkit to pass settings on every boot, or Combustion to set settings on first boot.
A key feature of Leap Micro is the atomic update mechanism, which is downloaded and applied automatically. Unlike the ostree and snap-based atomic updates used in Fedora and Ubuntu, openSUSE Leap Micro uses a native package manager and snapshot mechanism in the FS instead of building separate atomic images and deploying additional delivery infrastructure. Live patches are supported to update the Linux kernel without restarting or suspending work.
The root partition is mounted in read-only mode and does not change during operation. Btrfs is used as the file system, in which snapshots serve as the basis for atomic switching between the state of the system before and after installing updates. If you experience problems after applying the updates, you can roll back the system to a previous state. To run isolated containers, a toolkit with support for runtime Podman / CRI-O and Docker is integrated into the composition.
Applications for Leap Micro include use as a base system for virtualization platforms and container isolation, as well as use in decentralized environments and systems based on microservices. Leap Micro is also an important part of the next generation of the SUSE Linux distribution, which plans to split the distribution's core foundation into two parts: a stripped-down "host OS" to run on top of the hardware, and an application support layer focused on running in containers and virtual machines.
The new concept implies that the "host OS" will develop the minimum environment necessary to support and manage the equipment, and all applications and user-space components will not run in a mixed environment, but in separate containers or in virtual machines running on top of the "host OS" and isolated from each other.
Source: opennet.ru