First, move deployments to /ostree/deploy. Having them in the
toplevel clutters the filesystem layout too much.
When we deploy a tree like /ostree/deploy/NAME, there is now also a
writable directory /ostree/deploy/NAME-etc. This is mounted as
read-write inside the system.
On an initial install, that directory is copied from
/ostree/deploy/NAME/etc. On subsequent deployments, we find any
changes made in the current deployment's /etc, and apply that set of
changes to the new deployment's /etc.
See https://live.gnome.org/OSTree/EverythingInEtcIsABug