max / alloy

image: give the system one identity, at /usr/lib/os-release The image carried two. /etc/os-release said Alloy and /usr/lib/os-release said Fedora Linux 43, because `COPY etc/ /etc/` replaced the base's symlink with a regular file and left the file underneath it untouched. Which name a consumer saw depended on which path it read, and everything reading the /usr/lib path was told it was running Fedora. ostree is one of those consumers. It builds the boot menu entry from the deployment's /usr/lib/os-release, so every installed machine offered "Fedora Linux 43 (Forty Three) (ostree:0)" at GRUB — after all the work to replace Anaconda, the last surface before tuigreet that still said Fedora. Ship the file at /usr/lib/os-release and point /etc at it, which is both what the spec describes and what fedora-release, redhat-release and issue already do in this image. The link is relative so it resolves inside a mounted deployment rather than against the host's /usr. Verified on a scratch install: the generated BLS entry now reads `title Alloy 0.0 (pre-v0) (ostree:0)`. Both paths agree in the image, and the dnf $releasever pin still reads 43, which is the thing Alloy's own VERSION_ID would otherwise break.

Author: Max Johnson <me@maxj.phd> · 2026-07-22 17:36 UTC

Signed with PGP, not checked

Commit: a558726eb01814e73ba26018b514a277804986be

Parent: eed2a7b

2 files changed, +19 insertions, -2 deletions

M Containerfile +19 -2

			@@ -429,8 +429,25 @@
429	429		# =====================================================================
430	430		# Branding
431	431		# =====================================================================
432		-	# os-release, plymouth splash, wallpapers ship via the config tree
433		-	# above. No additional layer needed here.
	432	+	# plymouth splash and wallpapers ship via the config tree above.
	433	+	#
	434	+	# os-release ships at /usr/lib/os-release, not /etc/os-release, and this
	435	+	# link is what makes the two agree. It shipped at /etc for a while, which
	436	+	# left the image carrying two identities: /etc said Alloy and
	437	+	# /usr/lib said Fedora, because `COPY etc/ /etc/` replaced the base's
	438	+	# symlink with a regular file. Which name a consumer saw then depended on
	439	+	# which path it happened to read, and the ones reading /usr/lib were told
	440	+	# they were running Fedora. ostree is one of them: it builds the boot
	441	+	# menu entry from the deployment's /usr/lib/os-release, so every installed
	442	+	# machine offered "Fedora Linux 43 (Forty Three)" at GRUB, which is the
	443	+	# last surface after the installer that still said Fedora. See GO task
	444	+	# 7869c992.
	445	+	#
	446	+	# The link direction follows the spec and the base: /usr/lib holds the
	447	+	# file, /etc points at it, the same arrangement fedora-release, issue and
	448	+	# redhat-release already use. Relative, not absolute, so it resolves
	449	+	# inside a mounted deployment rather than against the host's /usr.
	450	+	RUN ln -sfn ../usr/lib/os-release /etc/os-release
434	451
435	452		# =====================================================================
436	453		# Disable third-party repos post-install.

R etc/os-release → usr/lib/os-release