Balena OS separation of concerns.

Feature Requests
1

I run a fleet of 300 devices. My base OS being updated 16 times a month is not conducive to a good base platform. We must build drivers and test apps against the base image and every bump does not indicate the base kernel version.

Is it possible to keep a base image with the Kernel version being the driver and make a patch delivery system for those minor changes being made? Rather than a whole new OS release.

Or in a less optimal solution provide a tag (stable) other than recommended (Cause that just rolls with your 16 releases)

Either way, supply clearly the base Kernel Version as a part of the Balena OS detail.

Deployment and rollout of such OS updates are not trivial in the remote facilities we are placed and they fail often and are not fire and forget.

2

Alex Gonzalez: Hi, thanks for your feedback.

My initial recommendation would be that you look into our Extended Support Release (ESR) releases that would allow you to limit your update cycle to twice a year. That seems to mostly cover your use case from what I understand.

We are also looking into enhancing the information that is included with each balenaOS release to include a complete list of packages and versions, which includes the Linux kernel. That will enable balenaCloud to surface important details with each balenaOS version, like the base kernel.