{"slug": "opensuse-microos", "name": "openSUSE MicroOS", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 5, "warners": 1, "score": 1.353, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-29", "latest": "2026-09-11", "why": "I think the right way to do this is with snapshots, the way opensuse microos is doing it", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 2, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I think the right way to do this is with snapshots, the way opensuse microos is doing it", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "opensuse.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://microos.opensuse.org/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["openSUSE MicroOS", "MicroOS"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 758757091, "item_id": 47422318, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422318", "by": "finaard", "date": "2026-03-17", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "suse microos is pretty much everything we were hoping to achieve", "excerpt": "> The fact that home is shared between all the distro- and toolboxes is a bit annoying, because I would like to have stronger isolation from the host in some projects. You can limit the access of distrobox, but it's a bit annoying, as they didn't think about isolation when designing it. Personally I'm not doing much with distrobox - I've been using LXC for ages to run some applications (like browsers) somewhat isolat", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenSUSE Kalpa"}, {"id": 745301827, "item_id": 46581364, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581364", "by": "stryan", "date": "2026-01-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "reboots automatically to apply updates with rollback if needed", "excerpt": "Quadlets are a real game changer for this type of small-to-medium scale declarative hosting. I've been pushing for them at work over ugly `docker compose in systemd units` service management and moved my home lab over to using them for everything. The latter is a similar setup to OP except with OpenSUSE MicroOS instead of Fedora CoreOS and I'm not so brave as to destroy and rebuild my VPS's whenever I make a change :", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Cannot SSH into My Server Anymore (and That's Fine)"}, {"id": 738762400, "item_id": 46172650, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46172650", "by": "finaard", "date": "2025-12-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I think the right way to do this is with snapshots, the way opensuse microos is doing it", "excerpt": "I think the right way to do this is with snapshots, the way opensuse microos is doing it, for example. You get the best of both worlds that way - you still can easily install packages into the OS to customise it, and you do get painless updates and rollbacks. There's a very narrow use case where you _do_ want images, but for that you'll want to control the complete secure boot chain for attestation, so I'd dismiss it", "context": "", "use_case": "Snapshot OS updates", "switched_from": "", "story": "Aurora: The Linux-based ultimate workstation"}, {"id": 737501552, "item_id": 46093847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46093847", "by": "d3Xt3r", "date": "2025-11-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'd recommend openSUSE microOS", "excerpt": "These days, since it's all about containers, I'd recommend openSUSE microOS, which is a minimal immutable rolling OS that's suitable as a container host. https://microos.opensuse.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "Container host OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 760766736, "item_id": 47547921, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47547921", "by": "madspindel", "date": "2026-03-27", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the rolling release actually led to more maintenance work (fixing breaking changes like config changes)", "excerpt": "> It\u2019s 2026, if you\u2019re not using something immutable (or at least reproducable) you\u2019re doing more maintenance work than you should. I used to use MicroOS on Raspberry Pis and NUCs but the rolling release actually led to more maintenance work (fixing breaking changes like config changes). Eventually I moved to Ubuntu but kept the mindset that all installed applications should be podman containers. I don't miss MicroOS", "context": "", "use_case": "Raspberry Pi and NUC OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "The State of Immutable Linux"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["raspberry pi and nuc os", "snapshot os updates", "container host os"], "compared": [{"slug": "podman", "name": "Podman", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "ubuntu", "name": "Ubuntu", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "btrfs", "name": "Btrfs", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47412726", "title": "OpenSUSE Kalpa", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49661506", "title": "Feeling Sad about AI", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47544175", "title": "The State of Immutable Linux", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46524390", "title": "I Cannot SSH into My Server Anymore (and That's Fine)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46094589", "title": "Aurora: The Linux-based ultimate workstation", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46091362", "title": "Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 794601715, "item_id": 49662607, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662607", "by": "hnedeotes", "date": "2026-09-11", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "try out a complete new OS (for instance microOS)", "excerpt": "I personally don't understand what's bad about AI being able to do much of the route, boring, crappy parts of programming. The same way SAP, salesforce, etc were never good products from the point of view of a company, other than enabling a corporate workflow and legal compliance, that was needlessly complex, they still got used when for a fraction of the \"subscription\" + consultants a better more fit to purpose solu", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Feeling Sad about AI"}, {"id": 760766736, "item_id": 47547921, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47547921", "by": "madspindel", "date": "2026-03-27", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "the rolling release actually led to more maintenance work (fixing breaking changes like config changes)", "excerpt": "> It\u2019s 2026, if you\u2019re not using something immutable (or at least reproducable) you\u2019re doing more maintenance work than you should. I used to use MicroOS on Raspberry Pis and NUCs but the rolling release actually led to more maintenance work (fixing breaking changes like config changes). Eventually I moved to Ubuntu but kept the mindset that all installed applications should be podman containers. I don't miss MicroOS", "context": "", "use_case": "Raspberry Pi and NUC OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "The State of Immutable Linux"}, {"id": 758757091, "item_id": 47422318, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422318", "by": "finaard", "date": "2026-03-17", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "suse microos is pretty much everything we were hoping to achieve", "excerpt": "> The fact that home is shared between all the distro- and toolboxes is a bit annoying, because I would like to have stronger isolation from the host in some projects. You can limit the access of distrobox, but it's a bit annoying, as they didn't think about isolation when designing it. Personally I'm not doing much with distrobox - I've been using LXC for ages to run some applications (like browsers) somewhat isolat", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenSUSE Kalpa"}, {"id": 758616818, "item_id": 47413551, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47413551", "by": "stryan", "date": "2026-03-17", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Kalpa still uses MicroOS as its upstream", "excerpt": "> what is \"atomic and transactional Linux\"? Linux distros that are updated with full system snapshots instead of package by package, similar to Android. The key difference is most of / is mounted read-only[0] and is only changed by distribution provided updates so you and the distro team always know exactly what's running. > What are the advantages to the alternatives? Greater control and stability since its essentia", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenSUSE Kalpa"}, {"id": 745301827, "item_id": 46581364, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581364", "by": "stryan", "date": "2026-01-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "reboots automatically to apply updates with rollback if needed", "excerpt": "Quadlets are a real game changer for this type of small-to-medium scale declarative hosting. I've been pushing for them at work over ugly `docker compose in systemd units` service management and moved my home lab over to using them for everything. The latter is a similar setup to OP except with OpenSUSE MicroOS instead of Fedora CoreOS and I'm not so brave as to destroy and rebuild my VPS's whenever I make a change :", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Cannot SSH into My Server Anymore (and That's Fine)"}, {"id": 738762400, "item_id": 46172650, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46172650", "by": "finaard", "date": "2025-12-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I think the right way to do this is with snapshots, the way opensuse microos is doing it", "excerpt": "I think the right way to do this is with snapshots, the way opensuse microos is doing it, for example. You get the best of both worlds that way - you still can easily install packages into the OS to customise it, and you do get painless updates and rollbacks. There's a very narrow use case where you _do_ want images, but for that you'll want to control the complete secure boot chain for attestation, so I'd dismiss it", "context": "", "use_case": "Snapshot OS updates", "switched_from": "", "story": "Aurora: The Linux-based ultimate workstation"}, {"id": 737501552, "item_id": 46093847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46093847", "by": "d3Xt3r", "date": "2025-11-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'd recommend openSUSE microOS", "excerpt": "These days, since it's all about containers, I'd recommend openSUSE microOS, which is a minimal immutable rolling OS that's suitable as a container host. https://microos.opensuse.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "Container host OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bazzite: Operating System for Linux gaming"}]}