Revive User Images #11

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opened 2026-02-07 14:26:13 +00:00 by Toasterson · 0 comments

Toasterson commented

2026-02-07 14:26:13 +00:00

(Migrated from codeberg.org)

In the early dasys of OpenSolaris there existed a feature called user images.

Basically it worked like this.

In the Users Home folder there is s special folder for the image config (path predated XDG specs)
It is a linked image to the system. So system updates would update this image aswell.
By manipulating Shared Object loader resp. ELF Loading prefixes the User image lib paths would precede the systems.
Thus the user could install Software that was installed only for him and not system wide.
With some clever dependency management this software could be installed on a NFS share and used on a fleet of servers.

In the early dasys of OpenSolaris there existed a feature called user images. Basically it worked like this. - In the Users Home folder there is s special folder for the image config (path predated XDG specs) - It is a linked image to the system. So system updates would update this image aswell. - By manipulating Shared Object loader resp. ELF Loading prefixes the User image lib paths would precede the systems. - Thus the user could install Software that was installed only for him and not system wide. - With some clever dependency management this software could be installed on a NFS share and used on a fleet of servers.