N I x o s

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I have investigated the idea and came to the conclusion that immutable distros are essentially a research project. They attempt to advance the state-of-art a slight bit but the cost is currently too great.

Perhaps somebody will some day create something that’s worth switching to. But I don’t think that has happened yet, or is happening with any of the current distros. Silverblue might become that with enough polish, but I feel that to get that amount of polish, they would have to make Silverblue the 1st class citizen, i.e. the default install of Fedora.

TL;DR: My desktop PC uses EndeavourOS and the only immutable experience I have is SteamOS 3. I can’t say one approach is better than the other, but I like having the newest software and packages in my system. And that’s best provided with a rolling release. I also think that sandbox systems like Flatpak and the several alternative installation methods besides the system package manager is an added complexity for a new user in Linux.

I don’t mind using an immutable system (BTW another term that describes this kind of system is Atomic, which comes from Fedora), as long as it is designed around it and works well. The only immutable system I use is on my Steam Deck with the pre-installed SteamOS 3. My generic desktop personal computer is using an Archlinux derivative EndeavourOS with a rolling-release, where I have much greater control over the system.

Both systems have their strengths. I don’t think that my mutable and always up to date system is breaking more often than the other system. The best part of it is, its always up to date and I get the newest applications. I try to not use much Flatpaks or AppImages (but do for certain apps, where I have no other choice for ease of use). And an immutable system naturally basically asks me to use Flatpaks and other user space package formats that is not handled by the distribution itself.

Even though I have some thoughts on it, I am not excluding one approach. Many say that immutable distributions are good for new users to Linux. I think this adds some complexity and problems, because they need to use sandbox systems like Flatpak. And that’s if they know that they are using Flatpak, because sometimes the app distribution gives options like AppImage and custom installer scripts as well. This is all confusing for someone who just starts with Linux. On top of it, the sandbox of Flatpak requires some additional setup and configuration for some apps, to access certain hardware or filesystems in example.

All in all, I tend to like the traditional “mutable” distribution system as a rolling release model the most. But I’m an not excluding any other and would use a good “immutable” one; I just didn’t try any other than the one in my Steam Deck.

what does the community think of it?

It’s important to note how the Linux community interacts with change. In the past, whenever a change has been significant enough to influence individual workflows, it often provoked strong reactions. This was evident when systemd was introduced and adopted by distros like Arch and Debian. Even though systemd was arguably superior in essential aspects for most users, it failed to meet the needs of at least a vocal minority. Consequently, community endeavors were set up to enable the use of Debian or Arch without systemd.

Similarly, the introduction of immutable distributions seems to upset some people, though (at least to me) it’s unjustified. Immutable distributions don’t necessarily alter the traditional model. For instance, the existence of Fedora Silverblue doesn’t impose changes on traditional Fedora; let alone Arch or Debian.

But, overall, most Linux users aren’t bothered by it. Though, they often don’t see a use for themselves. Personally, I attribute this at least in part to existing misconceptions and misinformation on the subject matter. Though, still, a minority^[1] (at best ~10%) actually prefers and uses ‘immutable’ distros.

Do the downsides outweigh the benefits or vice versa?

Depends entirely on what you want out of your system. For me, they absolutely do. But it’s important to note that the most important thing they impose on the user is the paradigm shift that comes with going ‘immutable’. And this is actually what traditional Linux users are most bothered by. But if you’re unfamiliar with Linux conventions, then you probably won’t even notice.

As a side note, it’s perhaps important to note that the similarities between traditional distros are greater than the similarities between immutable distros. Also, Fedora Atomic is much more like traditional Fedora than it is similar to, say, openSUSE Aeon or Vanilla OS. Grouping them together as if they are a cohesive group with very similar attributes is misleading. Of course, they share a few traits, but overall, the differences are far more pronounced.

Therefore, it is a false dichotomy to simply label them as traditional distros versus immutable distros. Beyond these names, which we have assigned to them, these labels don’t actually adequately explain how these systems work, how they interact, how their immutability is achieved (if at all), what underlying technologies they use, or how they manage user interactions. The implications of the above. Etc.

Could this help Linux reach more mainstream audiences?

The success of the Steam Deck and its SteamOS are the most striking and clear proof of this. So, yes. Absolutely.

1. Not accounting SteamOS users.

what does the community think of it?

Everyone has their own opinion, personally I think they’re a great idea and have lots of great applications. But just like rolling vs non-rolling release it’s a personal and application dependant choice.

Do the downsides outweigh the benefits or vice versa?

Again, depends, for my personal computer I wouldn’t use it because I think it could get complicated to get specific things to work, but for closed hardware like the Deck or even a fairly stable desktop used as a gaming system it’s perfect.

Could this help Linux reach more mainstream audiences?

It could, it can also hamper it because people might start to try solutions that only work until next boot and not understanding why, or having problems getting some special hardware to work (more than it would be a mutable distro). But there is a great counter to this which is that once it’s running it will be very difficult to break by user error.

At the end of the day I think it’s a cool technology but that people should know what they’re getting into, just like when choosing rolling vs non-rolling distro, it’s not about what’s better, but what suits your needs best.

From an advertising perspective, it’s important to think about who you’re targeting. Who are your likely customers? Certainly there are some based on the strengths that you raised.

However, some people are definitely not a good target audience, and some people is actually a very large group of people. There are a lot of current and potential users who essentially want the standard major applications to work, and they’re not going to touch the root partition, and they want things to be very simple. For people like that, Debian or Ubuntu or Fedora already do what they want. And these major operating systems have been around for so long that people will naturally be more confident using them, because they were their friends have experience, or because they think the organization has more stability because of its experience.

Of course a lot of things depend on how you define words, but to me the above paragraph describes the mainstream audience, and I don’t think you’re going to have much luck reaching them, because I don’t think the thing you’re trying to sell gives them extra value. In other words, it’s not solving a problem for them, so why should they care.

It’s subjective. I freaking love Bazzite, it works for me. Not the other way around.

Has anyone had good success with setting up a development environment in an immutable distro? I love the entire concept because it fits with a lot of my other software preferences, but the tools for containerized dev environments felt frustrating.

Like, what do you do for your editor? vscode + devcontainers feel like the best option, but it’s rough when I need other IDEs (like I use some of the Jetbrains products). Stuff like toolbox works well too, but to get an editor in that, you have to install it in each one, or make a container that has it built in.

Otherwise, I’ll stick with plain Fedora — I use flatpaks for all of my apps anyways (except my editor)

I am a big fan of breaking my system

Since the idea is that the “root partition” is immutable, serious question:

How do you fix a hardware config issue or a distro packaging / provision issue in an immutable distro?

Several times in my Linux history I’ve found that, for example, I need to remove package-provided files from the ALSA files in /usr/share/alsa in order for the setup to work with my particular chipset (which has a hardware bug). Other times, I’ve found that even if I set up a custom .XCompose file in my $HOME, some applications insist on reading the Compose files in /usr/share/X11/locale instead, which means I need to be able to edit or remove those files. In order to add custom themes, I need to be able to add them to /usr/share/{icons,themes}, since replicating those themes for each $HOME in the system is a notorious waste of space and not all applications seem to respect /usr/local/share. Etc.

Unless I’m mistaken on how immutable systems work, I’m not sure immutable systems are really useful to someone who actually wants to or needs to power user Linux, or customize past the “branding locking” that environments like Gnome have been aiming for for like a decade.

NixOS is kinda the best of both worlds, because it does everything in a way that is compatible with an immutable fs, but it doesn’t force you into abiding by immutability yourself.

You can always opt into immutability by using Impermanence, but I’ve never seen any reason to.

Edit: That said, the syntax has a steep learning curve and there are tons of annoying edge cases that spawn out of the measures it takes to properly isolate things. It can be a lot to micromanage, so if you’d rather just use your system more than tinker with it, it may not be a good fit.

I’ve used Bazzite for the last year or so after distrohopping for a while and landing on Arch. I learned how ‘atomic’ distros, as the Fedora folks call them, work. It sounded like my phone, where apps are relatively sandboxed and automatically update. I said ‘this is how computers should work’ and stuck to it.

I wouldn’t use standard Silverblue/Kinoite or standard Fedora. The uBlue images include so many drivers and fixes on the image that make the primary distros look incompetently made if you’re not a power user. They wouldn’t like me saying that because their work is only possible because of what Fedora does. But by that I mean, you will eventually run into something that doesn’t work and it always comes down to some licensing or scope issue that the developers simply don’t care about.

Having to do literally anything extra to get your NVIDIA GPU drivers frankly isn’t acceptable when that’s not the case for AMD cards. Let alone having to modify grub in the worst case if your distro doesn’t boot properly. If I have a part or plug something in that isn’t some hyper specific piece of technology, it should just work, because it isn’t 1999 where you need driver CDs anymore.

The main tradeoff is that for users who aren’t very technical, installing anything outside of flatpaks probably won’t make any sense. They have guides, and stuff like brew and distrobox isn’t that difficult when you understand it. But having 4 different ways to install stuff (flatpak, brew, distrobox, layering) sounds ridiculous and confusing on its face.

I have a practically 0 maintenance system with Bazzite and that’s the way I like it even though I’m perfectly capable of running anything else and modifying it to my liking. The average user isn’t going to care about anything they’re missing by not being able to modify certain files, or if they do, there’s probably a better way to do whatever it is they’re trying to do that doesn’t involve running random bash scripts.

I would recommend Aurora and Bluefin to all my Windows/Mac friends who aren’t gamers, and Bazzite or Bazzite-gnome to everyone who is. I would never recommend anything else at this point, not even something like Mint, because I consider the uBlue images to be just that good and the tradeoffs of the weird program installation to be more than worth it. Other immutable/atomic distros are too immature (like Arkane Linux) or work fundamentally differently to Fedora Atomic and rely more on things like snapshots (like OpenSUSE Aeon/Kalpa) so I’m not really comfortable recommending them either.

I don’t mind flatpaks in a pinch, but having to use them for literally every app on my computer is an unreasonable amount of bloat.

Secure != stable Immutable distros aren’t always more secure but rather more stable and hard to break Also btw nixos can apply updates without rebooting