2026-02-14 –, VYAS - G - Room#VY016
Creating custom Linux distributions has traditionally required specialized tooling, deep OS knowledge, and platform-specific build environments. With bootc, we now have a modern, container-native approach that turns OCI images into bootable, updatable Linux systems — and with Podman Desktop, this workflow becomes accessible on Linux, macOS, and Windows.
In this session, we’ll walk through how bootc leverages familiar container-building techniques to define an entire OS, enabling reproducible, declarative, and automated system images. We will explore how Podman Desktop simplifies this process with its cross-platform UI and built-in bootc extensions, allowing developers to build, test, and publish custom Linux OS artifacts without leaving their workstation.
In this session we will talk about
- What bootc is and how it transforms OCI images into bootable distros
- How to use Podman Desktop as a cross-platform environment for bootc workflows
- How to build a custom Linux OS image from scratch
- How to test bootable images locally with bootc plugin in podman desktop
- Best practices for OS versioning, updates, and reproducibility
Praveen Kumar is a Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat, where he leads efforts to create tools that make it easy for developers to experiment with OpenShift in local environments. With a strong passion for the container ecosystem, he actively contributes to a variety of open-source projects in his spare time.
Praveen has been a featured speaker at numerous conferences including Eclipse Summit, FUDCon, GNUnify, DevConf, Flock, FOSSAsia, Jenkins User Conference, and Docker-Meet. Over the years, he has delivered talks on Docker, OpenShift, Ansible, RPM packaging, Git, Jenkins, and several other developer-focused technologies.
He is deeply involved in the open-source community and enjoys sharing practical insights drawn from real-world engineering work. You can connect with Praveen on Twitter at @kumar_pravin.