Misconceptions About Immutable Distributions
Misconceptions About Immutable Distributions
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Misconceptions About Immutable Distributions
39 comments
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Been using Silverblue for a couple of years and dipped over to NixOS for a project.
I'm all giddy for immutable systems to take over, because it is truly the safest way a user can run a system. The added bonus being system rollback is built-in by default and not some secondary service.
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I'm helping a friend out with his laptop from time to time. They've used Linux Mint XFCE for many years and it's set to auto update. Now I got asked to help since the system stopped auto updating with an error message every boot. Seems like an issue with dpkg but I didn't have time so I don't know how to.fix it yet.
Another device is running Fedora Silverblue for a year or two and the only issue was an update failing because of some dependencie issue. But simply removing all overlayed packages and installing them again fixed it in no time.
I've also been using NixOS for a few months on my pc, laptop and server and it's great. Image based OS aren't flexible enough for my liking but are great for low maintenance setups.
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They aren't meant to be "flexible". Immutable means it's static, read only. You replace one image with another.
In the case of Silverblue you install using overlays, like Flatpak or toolbox/podman.
With NixOS you do get images, but in the form of clojures. BUT it also handles environments on a fundamental level, so you don't need to reboot to install new system applications or services.
Have you considered Vanilla OS? There's also uBlue, but I have hopes for Vanilla because it is user-firsf distro, whereas uBlue is more an off-shoot of Silverblue meant for users, but Ruth and same issues as with Silverblue.
Vanilla 2.0 is coming up soon and it seems like a great alternative for people with little to no know-how, or people who don't want to mess around and find out.
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I've used Fedora kinoite for at least a year now, it's pretty good
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Always love TheEvilSkeleton's takes, it feels like I'm reading my own experiences and opinions
(yes, I am saying they're literally me, frfr) -
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Correction, a small country and a kitchen appliciance of your choice
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Did you even read the article? You definitely should!
I did, and especially the "flexibility"-argument should change your mind.
Just look at NixOS for example. It's just as configurable as Arch (from what I've read), but immutable. And it's also not more complicated, just different.Immutable OSs only restrict you as much as you want them to be.
Also, the underlying technologies (like OSTree, nix-config, A/B-Root, and so on) aren't proprietary.
Just look at uBlue, they've utilized OSTree to share system configs.While some things really just aren't possible anymore or require workarounds, it opened the door for many, way more interesting routes.
Also, you don't need to be angry.
Nobody will take anything away from you. Mutable distros will still persist for many many years, maybe forever?We should be exited what the future brings!
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Yeah, it's a big reason why I'm never in a hurry to adopt 'the next big thing' until it's proven to be the next big thing or I have an immediate use for it.
No point in bogging myself down in theory when practicality works just fine.
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silverblue has irritated me to no end, still need to try nix
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Why? Can you elaborate further?
Have you tried uBlue, a custom imaging system for Silverblue?Did the non-immutable Fedora irritate you too?
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regular fedora isn't bad, but I find that silverblue kept getting in my way when in trying to do things. I'm not the biggest fan of regular Fedora don't get me wrong. but it does a lot of things right.
but well in the end I'm just not the biggest fan of any computer system. I just find arch the most tolerable for not getting in my way. I'm actually really looking forward to trying nixOS since I heard it has a lot of flexibility.
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I will personally never use a immutable distro
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Why not?
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Overly complicated and burdensome. I just use distrobox for anything that is going to pull in a bunch of dependencies
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Immutability has always struck me as a fad.
Aside from declaring variables as FINAL or whatever because I know they won't be changed, the mere idea of using it as a default just seems unnecessarily restrictive to me.
It feels like people who bog themselves down in theory to solve their problems instead of practicality think immutability is a godsend.
For everyone else, it doesn't really matter at best or is an inconvenience at worst.
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Do you mean in programming? Because this is talking about immutable Linux distributions.
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Might be down, try again later
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39 comments
Fedora is, at least in theory, 100% community maintained and owned.
Red Hat sponsors this project (developers and money), in the hopes, that most of it gets upstreamed to RHEL, acting as a "testing ground".
It happened often, and will happen again many times, that the Fedora team decides against interests of RH.
It's a great symbiosis: we, as a community, get an extremely well maintained and professional distro, and RH gets feedback.
Also, side note, the "advertisement" of the RH-ecosystem works. If it weren't because of CasaOS (the web interface and docker management), I would use Almalinux (RHEL clone) instead of Debian, since I'm just used to Fedora and feel more confident in it.
It kinda is. Most of the package maintainers are Red Hat or IBM employees. Red Hat has special roles in the governance structure which no other organisation has. Red Hat provides pretty much all the technical infrastructure (web hosting, repositories, build servers etc.) to the project gratis. Red Hat even own the trademarks to the Fedora name and logo.
The community governance structure is real and good, but it's denying reality to pretend that Fedora isn't tightly bound to Red Hat.
It's debatable at best.