This is a walkthrough of how Fedora turns source code and packages into the artifacts you download and install. It follows the a package from a packager’s git push to a composed release: ISOs, cloud images, container images, and OSTree deployments.

↫ Simon de Vlieger

Linux distributions – good ones like Fedora, at least – are really complex operations, with a ton of checks and balances to ensure no git push eventually ends up causing problems on individual users’ machines way down the line. The fact so many people involved in this complex web of processes also happen to be volunteers doing all of this out of the goodness of their hearts is amazing. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to Fedora, but also the countless other distributions out there, especially those not owned by some giant corporation like IBM.

If you’re just a casual Fedora user, there’s really no reason you have to know or be aware of any of this, but it’s still fun and interesting to understand the inner workings of your distribution of choice.