If this has already been addressed, I apologize as I didn't find it.
When attempting to install Micro OS packages such as Virtualbox or VLC from the GUI Package Manager it fails with the error: can't create transaction lock on /usr/lib/sysimage/rpm/.rpm.lock (Read-only file system)
I installed the VLC flatpack from the GUI no problem.
As there is no flatpack for Virtualbox I then tried to install Virtualbox via cli transactional-update and it installed.
Decided to install the Micro OS Desktop Gnome. First thing I notice is that during the installation GRUB fails to detect and configure for other operating systems, in this case Windows 10 (yeah, I know but I need it for certain tasks), so there is no GRUB boot menu item for the other OS. I ran the installation twice just to be sure I didn't miss anything.
Fortunately, I can still boot that by entering my BIOS boot menu, but that's an unnecessary additional step IMHO.
All meeting minutes can be found here:
https://etherpad.opensuse.org/p/ReleaseEngineering-meeting
Meeting is hosted here
https://meet.opensuse.org/ReleaseEngineeringMeeting
## Attendees
lkocman, coolo, sbehlert
Topics:
Simon Lees's email after the frist Lifecycle WG meeting:
Some of the lifecycle changes being proposed here have some pretty
significant impacts on the future of openSUSE's stable distro. The
current plan being discussed seems to be only offering the "fasttrack"
option for the community. Which would make it basically a copy of
centos-stream which as we know didn't go down well in that community
and I don't think it would go down well in ours.
Lubos to invite Stefan Kulow to the next regular Community WG meeting
(done, let's see if he accepts). Stephan pointed me to PM Stefan B.
Understanding of ALP lifecycles
Stefan B.: No lifecycle is being pushed by SUSE on the community, and
since ALP will be built in public, we're free to select what works for
the community the best with available resources (specifically also
maintenance team), etc.
Stefan B. : The mentioned FastTrack - when there is a new version,
think about Leap as we have it nowadays.
Stefan B.: think about the decoupling of the lifecycle per "component".
Unlike in current Leap / SLES some of the components will be delivered
as flatpaks and containers, and these can have various lifecycles.
lkocman: That also depends on where we consume individual blocks, e.g.,
the desktop. If it's flathub, then the lifecycle is given by whoever
maintains the flathub application. On the other side, we would have a
bit more flexibility if it's an OBS "flatpak" repo.
lkocman: In the context of base-os, we'd probably have to follow the
"basic" lifecycle of SLES. Similar to Leap nowadays with small overlap
(1/2 of the release cadence e.g., 12+6 months or 6+3 months as in SLE
Micro, that's to be discussed.
lkocman: mentioned that original proposals were offering Leap
I just tried Micro OS as a desktop for ... i admit, not long, maybe an hour, because I just found it to be *unusable* as a desktop for anyone who does not know all the differences between a transactional OS and a traditional Linux OS.
To be frank and outright: While I believe that there definitely is a place for such a thing as transactional OS updates and package installations, that place is not on a desktop. At least not unless the user is actually *told about it* at first login.
I installed µOS as "Plasma Desktop" in a VM, and was greeted after login with a plain Plasma Desktop with almost no apps, and no YaST either. And after finding discover I found that every installation process after the first failed without telling me why.
Yes, I know, transactional, yadda yaddda - but the user needs to KNOW that each install needs a REBOOT (hello, windows 98) to be able to install another application - and the easiest way to be sure that the user knows that is what?
Guess?
Yep, telling them. which µOS does not, as of 20220718.
So - begone for now. I'll have another look in a while(or maybe use it for the kind of stuff where it makes sense, like kubernetes workers or something like that).
If this comes across as a bit harsh: what can I say, that was a bit disappointing after 25 years of (almost) nothing but positive experiences with SuSE and later openSUSE products.
Cheers
MH