SYNOPSIS

+ + + + + +

Project Shards [shards] MacOS inspired + Immutable Linux + Distribution

DESCRIPTION

Project Shards is an immutable linux + distribution using multiple Volumes to create one system

How + it works

Project Shards utilizes multiple Volumes + (called Shards) to create one root using bind and overlay mounts

The + different Shards

Project Shards Consists of 6 Shards:

- The Root shard acts like a preloader, it provides the special + root directories like /run or /dev and the initial tools for mounting the + other Shards and creating the proper root system

- The Boot shard contains files and packages requir to boot on + real hardware this is mainly the bootloader and kernel

- The System shard is the main root, it contains everything + required to boot into userspace and cannot be modified unless booted into + the recovery

- Data Contains everything the user installs themselves or changes + on the root filesystem, it is mounted read-write and contains /etc

- Users contains the home directories of all users, it is simply + bind mounted to /home on boot as read-write

- The Recovery shard is a seperate system from the other shards, + it can be booted by itself. It contains the Graphical and Terminal based + recovery for updating, troubleshooting or reinstalling Project Shards

Package + Management

Project Shards uses a pacman wrapper + called shardctl to install and remove packages, however users can also enter + a special mode to use pacman(1) directly.

shardctl also allows installing aur packages and wraps + around apx(1) to allow installing packages into containers.

Project Shards comes preinstalled with + flatpak and allows installing them by simply dragging the flatpakref files + into ~/Applications. This is achieved using appD.

appD also allows installing pacman packages by dragging the + .pkg.tar.xz files into ~/Applications.

Updating

Project Shards uses the Recovery to + perform updates. When a user decides to update their + Project Shards Installation, they get rebooted into + the Recovery which automatically starts the Update.

If the Update is succesfull the Recovery either turns the computer + off or reboots it, depending on what the user chose when starting the + update.

If the Update fails, then the recovery rolls back to a snapshot it + took before starting the update and warns the user next time it boots into + the main Project Shards installation.

Installing

Project Shards installs similiarly to + MacOS, the ISO offered for download is actually the recovery, when booting + into the iso the user is immediately presented with the Recovery screen and + can Install

The installation process only asks the user for the disk to + install onto, any postinstall configurations usually set in the Installer, + like user creation, setting the timezone or choosing locales are done post + install in a first-setup application.

Images

Project Shards like other immutable + distributions uses images to distribute updates unlike other immutable + distributions however, Project Shards does not + directly use OCI-Images, it uses flatpak packages as a type of ostree + frontend. This means that optimally the update process only consists of a + simple flatpak update to upgrade the system.

Realistically this is not the case, since extra things such as + managing /etc will have to be done after the update

See + Also

+ +

+axtlos(7) +Specs(7) +Crystal Linux(1) +Linux Immutability Tools(1) +