openSUSE MicroOS – immutable rolling-release Linux distribution

openSUSE MicroOS is an immutable rolling-release Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE community.

It is designed primarily for container workloads and single-purpose server deployments, providing a small base system that can be administered and updated with minimal intervention.

The distribution uses a read-only Btrfs root filesystem together with transactional updates. System changes are applied to a new filesystem snapshot rather than directly to the running system, helping keep updates predictable and making it straightforward to return to an earlier working state if something goes wrong.

This is free and open source software.

Key Features

• Uses transactional updates so system changes are applied atomically to filesystem snapshots.
• Keeps the root filesystem read-only during normal operation, reducing unintended changes to the base system.
• Uses Btrfs snapshots to provide rollback after problematic updates or configuration changes.
• Uses standard openSUSE RPM packages while adapting package installation to its transactional model.
• Designed to run applications and services in containers rather than adding them directly to the base operating system.
• Provides a privileged debugging toolbox container with access to the host root filesystem and additional diagnostic utilities.
• Supports automated administration and patching, making it suitable for container hosts and appliance-style deployments.
• Supports Combustion for automated first-boot configuration of preconfigured and self-installing images.
• Provides images for physical systems, virtual machines, cloud environments and selected ARM hardware.
• Uses signed repositories and package verification, and avoids applying updates when dependency conflicts are detected.