Upgrades and Rollbacks
Upgrading the OS
To get updates for the OS, you can run: rpm-ostree upgrade. Starting
with Fedora 28, gnome-software will also offer OS updates on Silverblue
systems. Note that due to the atomic nature of the OS, you will have to
reboot into the new image to have the updates take effect.
If you just want to check for available updates, this command will do
so: rpm-ostree upgrade --check. Starting with Fedora 28,
gnome-software will also notify you about OS updates, just like it does
on the traditional workstation.
Rebasing across new major versions
There were a substantial number of changes in Silverblue 29; see this forum thread. The high level is that the operating system was slimmed down significantly, dropping many applications as well as libvirt and docker.
For desktop applications, it’s recommended to use Flatpak; but you may also
layer them back via rpm-ostree install.
If for example you want to continue using Docker instead of podman, you can run:
$ rpm-ostree install --allow-inactive docker
Similarly if you want to continue using libvirt, do the same with libvirt.
To upgrade from Fedora Atomic Workstation 28 to Silverblue 29:
$ ostree remote gpg-import fedora-workstation -k /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-29-primary $ rpm-ostree rebase fedora/29/x86_64/silverblue
To upgrade from Fedora Silverblue 29 to Silverblue 30:
$ sudo ostree remote gpg-import fedora-workstation -k /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora-30-primary $ rpm-ostree rebase fedora-workstation:fedora/30/x86_64/silverblue
The process is very similar to a system update: the new OS is downloaded and installed in the background, and you just boot into it when it is ready.
Just like system updates, rebases can be reversed: the previous deployment is still available, and you can boot back into it if there are any problems with the new OS.
We plan to have gnome-software offer the same functionality in Fedora 29 as well.
Rolling Back the OS
rpm-ostree keeps two deployments around, which both have an entry in the grub menu. When you boot, you can choose the other entry to boot into the previous deployment.
To permanently switch back to the previous deployment, use the
rpm-ostree rollback command.
Update applications
To update your Flatpak applications, you can run: flatpak update.
gnome-software will also offer Flatpak application updates. Note that
Flatpaks are independent of the base system, so you can install updates
without a reboot, and just restart affected applications afterwards to
get the new version.
This command will let you check if application updates are available:
flatpak remote-ls --updates. If you add the -d option, it will
generate detailed information about the available updates:
$ flatpak remote-ls --updates -d Ref Origin Commit Installed size Download size app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/x86_64/stable flathub effe21b05e42 6.3 MB 4.1 MB app/org.blender.Blender/x86_64/stable flathub ac90294a1cc3 225.4 MB 79.6 MB runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel/x86_64/1.6 flathub 818a1504fad1 8.7 MB 2.7 MB runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.24 flathub 6132154b089b 739.5 MB 281.4 MB runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.26 flathub be9fe7b43711 782.5 MB 296.8 MB runtime/org.gnome.Sdk/x86_64/3.26 flathub c62d5ddf669a 1.6 GB 582.9 MB runtime/org.kde.Platform/x86_64/5.9 flathub ea891f4a918f 1.1 GB 391.0 MB app/org.gnome.Builder/x86_64/master gnome-apps-nightly b14e6c0fc6c3 105.0 MB 35.4 MB
gnome-software will also notify you about application updates, just like it does on the normal workstation.