All packages have been built and tested in house. A list of installed packages can be found here.
OviOS uses pacman as a package manager. However there is no relation between Arch Linux or any other Linux distro and OviOS Linux.
The system is provided with all needed packages for a stable storage server. Due to the way it's built, storage admins can add more packages, by building from source.
There are 2 ways this can be achieved:
With OviOS Linux the user has complete control over how the system should work, what extra packages are needed and what services should run.
OviOS Linux is a specialized Linux distribution aimed at creating the fastest and easiest Linux unified storage server. It requires little to no knowledge of Linux, NFS, SMB or iSCSI protocols to create a fully functional storage server in less than 30 minutes, simply by following the 4 steps in the Admin Guide .
OviOS was the first storage system based on Linux to implement the blk_mq IO Queueing mechanism in a production environment together with the highly advanced ZFS storage filesystem. blk_mq allows for over 15 million IOPS with high-performance flash devices on 8 socker-servers, though even single and dual socket servers also benefit considerably from blk-mq.
The OviOS Linux iso image can also be used as a rescue image for ZFS on Linux systems. After the system starts, disable the skip import option and start zfs-admin:
ovios-shell> options skip.import off
ovios-shell> options force.import on
This option is needed if the pool was previously imported by a system with a different hostid:
ovios-shell> zfs-admin start
See the OviOS Live guide to learn how to use OviOS without installing.
OviOS is highly customizable, as new packages can be added easily by building from source. The OS functionality is customizable via the options tool.
OviOS Linux is not based on or derived from any other Linux Distro, and is fully compatible with the Linux Standard Base.
OviOS simplicity means no extra software, configurations and sophistications. OviOS uses the minimal amount of applications needed to allow it to function as a storage OS. The modifications to the software included are minimal and only distro-specific.
The Linux Kernel is stripped of all drivers and modules not required for a server distro. Lightweight also means no GUI. A GUI just makes simple tasks simpler, and complex task impossible. A GUI would also require considerable amount of resources, which can be better used to serve data.
The goal is to keep OviOS Linux a pure storage appliance-like OS.
It targets users and admins who need a stable out-of-the-box iSCSI, NFS, SMB server, and Linux and storage engineers who want to learn how to build a system from scratch.
