Laypeople couldn’t fix it even more.
Immutable, not really a difference. Bad updates can still break the OS.
AB root, however, it would be much easier to fix, but would still be a manual process.
Aren’t most immutable Linux distros AB, almost by definition? If it’s immutable, you can’t update the system because it’s immutable. If you make it mutable for updates, it’s no longer immutable.
The process should be:
- Boot from A
- Install new version to B
- Reboot into B
- If unstable, go to 1
- If stable, repeat from 1, but with A and B swapped
That’s how immutable systems work. The main alternative is a PXE system, and in that case you fix the image in one place and power cycle all your machines.
If you’re mounting your immutable system as mutable for updates, congratulations, you have the worst of immutable and mutable systems and you deserve everything bad that happens because of it.
Honestly if you’re managing kernel and userspace remotely it’s your own fault if you don’t netboot. Or maybe Microsoft’s don’t know what the netboot situation looks like in windows land.
In the best case it could automatically reboot into working configuration.
And download the update again
No we are having some fun!
You mean like NixOS?
It wouldn’t technically stop anything, it would just make your live Hell on Earth if you tried to add that self-updating ring-0 proprietary software in your servers.
But I guess what you are looking for is immutable infrastructure? That one would stop the problem.
Nixos wouldn’t have had any issues, it maintains state information based on configuration and you can choose to load an older boot image during bootloader. Other immutable distros it depends on how they work
