Request Flatcar Linux Support #820
Description
My org purchased the FlashSystem 5300, and I have to say — the product is very impressive. The 1U form factor, modern management interface, and especially the FlashCore Modules with built-in deduplication and compression make it stand out in today’s enterprise storage landscape.
However, what impressed me the most is this actively maintained CSI driver project. why?
Our organization has been searching for a reliable, long-term supported CSI solution for enterprise-grade storage for over five years. We evaluated several vendors — including Dell Unity and Pure Storage — who initially had promising plans but eventually paused or abandoned their CSI initiatives. Seeing IBM’s FlashSystem team actively develop and maintain a production-grade CSI driver was truly exciting.
The Challenge: Flatcar Linux Support
We are currently testing FlashSystem CSI integration on Flatcar Linux, but installation fails due to missing vg-related packages and dependency issues. Despite multiple attempts to manually inject the missing components, we have not been able to complete the deployment successfully.
Flatcar Linux has become a key OS option for bare-metal Kubernetes and open-source container orchestration environments. Unlike Ubuntu, which serves more as a general-purpose OS, Flatcar is purpose-built for immutable infrastructure — making it the preferred choice for many cloud-native and edge deployments.
It would be extremely valuable if IBM could either:
- Provide a guide or patch script to install the necessary dependencies for the CSI driver on Flatcar Linux, or
- Offer official support or documentation to help the community contribute Flatcar compatibility back to the CSI project.
Why This Matters
If the FlashSystem CSI driver is intended only for IBM’s internal ecosystem (CoreOS/Red Hat), that’s understandable.
But if the goal is to expand FlashSystem adoption and strengthen IBM’s position in modern, open-source cloud infrastructure, then extending support to Flatcar (and similar lightweight Kubernetes-native OS platforms) would be a highly strategic move.
As someone who has evaluated multiple enterprise storage solutions, I believe this step would make IBM FlashSystem the most developer- and container-friendly enterprise storage platform available today.
Thank you for your great work and continued innovation.