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Getting Started ‐ Why MicroOS
openSUSE MicroOS is a specialized operating system designed for hosting container workloads with automated administration and patching. It offers several compelling features that make it an ideal foundation for Infinite Ez.
One of the primary reasons we chose MicroOS for Infinite Ez is its immutable nature. This immutability ensures that all updates are atomic. By utilizing btrfs with snapshots, MicroOS efficiently stores the filesystem’s history. All configuration files in /etc are included in the snapshots and rollbacks, making it simple to revert the system to a previous state with a single command and a reboot. This is crucial for an operating system running multiple containers that cannot afford frequent downtimes.
A common criticism of SUSE systems is the lack of repository compatibility for many dependencies with the SUSE package manager, zypper. However, Infinite Ez has almost zero dependencies, using zypper (via transactional-update) solely for keeping the operating system updated. This minimizes potential compatibility issues and streamlines the update process.
For deploying applications, Infinite OS is used. It is based on a streamlined version of Debian, compatible with virtually every programming language, database, and dependency your application might require, using the user-friendly apt package manager. This ensures a broad compatibility range and ease of use for developers.
Infinite Ez deploys a separate partition for user and container data using XFS. This alleviates concerns about the use of btrfs on the main partition. With XFS managing the actual data on the server, disk quotas can be set for each user, and IO and IOPS operations of the containers can be limited. XFS is one of the most widely used filesystems, known for its reliability and compatibility with container runtimes, ensuring smooth operations without filesystem compatibility issues.