Linux has this create feature of being able to include the operating system in the initrd. Put this with a nice PXE infrastructure where you pxe the OS and download the initrd with the OS in it. Then you simply kexec to upgrade or downgrade the entire operating system in ~30 seconds. I used to manage a production environment that worked exactly this way for several thousand nodes.
Not sure I'd call it niche, but yes, somewhat specialized.
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Everyone I talked to about it since has said "nobody seems to care enough to bother completing it"
It is kind of a niche feature, really.
Linux has this create feature of being able to include the operating system in the initrd. Put this with a nice PXE infrastructure where you pxe the OS and download the initrd with the OS in it. Then you simply kexec to upgrade or downgrade the entire operating system in ~30 seconds. I used to manage a production environment that worked exactly this way for several thousand nodes.
Not sure I'd call it niche, but yes, somewhat specialized.