Frequently Asked Questions

[ermo]

Table of Contents

• Installation Questions
• Package Questions
• Project Questions
• Usage Questions

How can I help?

If you have a proposal for the FAQ*, put it in a new post in the Q&A category and notify me there, and we'll see about integrating it in the FAQ below.

*: FAQ stands for "Frequently Asked Questions".

[ermo]

Installation Questions

Which CPUs do Serpent OS support?

Serpent OS is currently only compiled for the x86_64-v2 target architecture, which means that it will run on CPUs supporting x86_64-v2 or greater psABI feature levels.

Checking the currently supported x86_64 psABI feature level of a system can be done by executing the following snippet in a terminal as a normal user:

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HenrikBengtsson/x86-64-level/refs/heads/develop/x86-64-level | bash -s -- --verbose

Does Serpent OS offer NVIDIA GPU support?

Due to the way NVIDIA distributes its drivers, maintaining them in a distro is labour intensive and frustrating when they do not work as advertised.

Given Serpent OS is in the Alpha development stage, only limited, best effort NVIDIA enablement related to cards supported by the so-called nvidia-open-gpu-kernel-modules is currently offered.

You can check the status of NVIDIA support in serpent-os/recipes#435

Does Serpent OS support being installed alongside another OS?

Officially? Not yet.

You can try, but there is no guarantee that Serpent OS won't eat your other OS.

You have been warned.

What is the recommended partition layout for Serpent OS?

In practice, we recommend that you install Serpent OS to a separate drive with:

• A >= 256MB ESP FAT32 partition (type 1 in fdisk).
  • This must be manually formatted for the installer to recognise it.
• A 4GB XBOOTLDR FAT32 partition (type 142 in fdisk, bls_boot in gparted).
  • This must be manually formatted for the installer to recognise it.
  • This partition is large, because it is where the Serpent OS kernel and (in the future) rescue image files will be saved.
• A >20 GB system xfs partition
  • The larger the xfs system (/ or root) partition is, the more OS /usr directory rollback states it can support in /.moss/.

󰌽 ermo@virgil:~
❯ sudo fdisk -l /dev/nvme1n1
Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 931,51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 980 PRO 1TB                 
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: ED391D3B-7BCC-4407-911F-FF7B2CECB45A

Device           Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme1n1p1    2048     526335     524288   256M EFI System
/dev/nvme1n1p2  526336    8914943    8388608     4G Linux extended boot
/dev/nvme1n1p3 8914944 1953523711 1944608768 927,3G Linux root (x86-64)
󰌽 ermo@virgil:~
❯ sudo lsblk -f /dev/nvme1n1
NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
nvme1n1                                                                            
├─nvme1n1p1 vfat   FAT32       CA93-B86A                                           
├─nvme1n1p2 vfat   FAT32       C837-2227                                           
└─nvme1n1p3 xfs                569404f0-74ce-4c9e-936a-96aca25c7cd0  845,6G     9% /
󰌽 ermo@virgil:~
❯ 

NB: Remember, there is nothing stopping you from creating an extra partition, formatting it with a filesystem of your choice, and then configuring /etc/fstab to mount it as /home after Serpent OS has been installed, if you want to use a different filesystem than xfs for your /home folders for whatever reason.

Why do you recommend the xfs filesystem for the root partition?

Testing has shown that, due to how moss saves rollback states, xfs is by far the quickest filesystem in practice for Serpent OS root partition usage.

We currently do not recommend either ext4 or f2fs root partitions, because testing has shown that they offer very poor performance on the first update (sudo moss sync -u) after a cold start of your computer compared to xfs.

Do you support installing Serpent OS on ext4?

We currently strongly recommend that you use xfs on your root partition for the best experience with moss and Serpent OS.

Do you support installing Serpent OS on f2fs?

We currently strongly recommend that you use xfs on your root partition for the best experience with moss and Serpent OS.

Do you support installing Serpent OS on btrfs?

Not yet.

Do you support installing Serpent OS on bcachefs?

Not yet.

Do you support installing Serpent OS on ZFS?

No.

The licensing situation around ZFS is fraught and we would rather not get involved with Oracle Lawyers if we can avoid it.

[ermo]

Usage Questions

How do I make my system check for updates and install them?

sudo moss sync -u

This is a short hand form of:

# update the local systems "view" of which packages are available
sudo moss repo update
# synchronise the installed state against the list of available packages
sudo moss sync

Why don't application icons for newly installed apps show up in my current session after a sync or install?

It is a known issue and we are working on a solution.

For now, log out and back in again and they will show up.

When do I need to reboot after updates?

• Kernel updates require a reboot.
• Some updates require you to log out of your desktop session and back in (see above).
• Most updates only require you to close the apps that were updated and start them again.

How do I access the rollback feature at boot?

Hold down or mash your <Space> key repeatedly after your computer starts up.

How do I verify the integrity of my install states in Serpent OS?

sudo moss state verify

Tack on --help to see the options for verify.

How do I clean out older install states in Serpent OS?

sudo moss state prune

Tack on --help to see the options for prune.

[ermo]

Package Questions

How come your package repository is so small?

We are still in heavy development ("Alpha") and are developing our backend and associated automated rebuild processes.

If we discover that it is necessary for us to rebuild our entire repository, we would like the ability to do so in the span of an afternoon (using multiple builders in parallel).

Once our backend story and our automated rebuild process story are both further advanced, we will begin scaling out the repository to contain more packages.

Could you package (...) please?

See above.

For now, we encourage users to use flatpaks for the applications we do not yet carry in our repository.

Currently, we are focusing on adding must-have packages for platform bring-up, for things that give us a development edge, or for things that help us showcase Serpent OS capabilities.

If the use-case for the package you are proposing is in line with the ethos above, you can make a package request here

Where can I learn how to package for Serpent OS?

Consult the packaging documentation here.

In addition, consult the Serpent OS recipes/ repository.

Finally, join the Serpent OS Matrix space and make sure to join the Packaging room.

[ermo]

Project Questions

Is it ok to share links to video content of Serpent OS in action in the Matrix rooms?

Yes! We absolutely love seeing people using Serpent OS in the wild!

1. Please first share them as a post in the Show and Tell category,
2. Then, share a link to your post in the Serpent OS Matrix space in the General room so the link to the video doesn't get lost in the Matrix.
3. If you are a content creator, you may want to join the Content Creator Corner room as well.

Which distribution is Serpent OS derived from?

Serpent OS has been bootstrapped and built from scratch and is not based on any other distro.

This implies that Serpent OS has its own:

• package manager (moss)
• package build tool (boulder)
• build pipeline consisting of:
  • the package build dashboard and controller (summit)
  • the builder-as-a-service middleware (avalanche)
  • the package repository manager (vessel)

This also implies that Serpent OS does NOT build upon or use either:

• .rpm related tooling from Red Hat
• .deb related tooling from the Debian Project
• Arch-related tooling

When will Serpent OS be considered stable?

Serpent OS is taking on the ambitious task of creating a distribution from scratch, whilst building its own tooling and solutions for this.

As such, there is no official ETA.

Now that the project has hit alpha status, you will see more frequent updates and progress reports.