A/B format (or A/B partitioning) refers to how Valve handles updates. There’s two partitions, each of which has a full copy of the base system files, and let’s assume you’re on Partition A. Each time you update, you would actually be updating Partition B, then you reboot and your boot system picks Partition B as the one you boot into. Next time you update, it’s back to Partition A, etc. This way, you always have a safe system state.
On some systems, if you run into a bug, you can rollback to the alternate partition manually. The way Valve does it, you automatically rollback when you crash, so players never know this is happening in the background.
Vanilla OS also uses A/B partitioning, and their program that handles it is called ABRoot.
A/B format (or A/B partitioning) refers to how Valve handles updates. There’s two partitions, each of which has a full copy of the base system files, and let’s assume you’re on Partition A. Each time you update, you would actually be updating Partition B, then you reboot and your boot system picks Partition B as the one you boot into. Next time you update, it’s back to Partition A, etc. This way, you always have a safe system state.
On some systems, if you run into a bug, you can rollback to the alternate partition manually. The way Valve does it, you automatically rollback when you crash, so players never know this is happening in the background.
Vanilla OS also uses A/B partitioning, and their program that handles it is called ABRoot.