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this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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My understanding is that most immutable distributions store the root filesystem in a read-only partition separate from userspace. If you want to install something that would modify this partition, it is applied temporarily until reboot. On reboot, the operating system attempts to resolve your changes, and if they break something it will reject them.
Each OS might implement immutability differently, but I believe that's the general idea. macOS is another example of an immutable operating system, as of Big Sur.
Read only root and was they way unix was installed for decades. Some things, like nfs roots, somewhat rely on it (multiple machines would run a single static install of unix, with user partitions being mounted on demand on each machine).
People don't like dealing with partitions though so modern distros tend towards a single root paritition with everything in it. It's funny to go back to the old way.
Hmm... I didn't know that. Thanks!