TheModerateTankie [any]

According to this post, once these projects move to bootc, they are going to get rid of layering and allow you to just dnf install what you need.

Recent discussions upstream has consolidated around doing things the Ublue way. Pulling a base image from an upstream registry and using containerfiles to define a system locally. No custom scripts and unit files. No GitHub. Just writing custom changes to a containerfile and having them automatically apply on reboot. Running dnf install @virtualization would add the following line to the containerfile in the background:​

RUN dnf install -y @virtualization

The powerful thing about build time container image layers like this is that you can do deep customizations like switching out the kernel, changing the login manager, use your own custom boot screen, or redistribute your build by pushing it to a public/private container registry or as the Ublue team shown use container based ci/cd workflows for automated vulnerability scanning against public databases like NVD and CVE.

Seems like it will get rid of a lot of pain points.

This seems pretty similar to what universal blue releases are doing, which is cool. Basically fedora atomic, but using new bootc tooling so a small team can more easily manage a project like this. The custom gui for config options and the addition of SWAI seem neat.

The custom app center thing seems kind of redundant because there are quite a few app stores out there already, but I think the intention is to use that to curate and steer people towards native gnome apps and discourage kde apps so the UI is consistent. You should be able to “unlock” the ability to use kde apps, but by default it keeps you in the gnome ecosystem.

If this proves to be stable, it would be a good option for new users or people who don’t want to dive into messing with the system layer. Like Bazzite, Bluefin, or Aurora. It will also have the same benefits/limitations as those.

Looks interesting! I know a lot of people hate the idea of the fedora atomic model, and there are a few issues that need worked out for certain use cases, but i’ve been on Bluefin for a year and it’s been a great experience overall.

As far as I understand it, the immutable fedora-based distros want as much as possible to be installed at the user level. Layering things onto the system should be reserved for things that need system level access to work properly, like maybe a driver or something like that, which might not have been included.

It’s a better practice for stability and security.

The universal blue distros are the fastest I’ve been able to have a usable computer up and running and doing what I want it to do. They are fantastic.

There are no official cosmic variants anymore, but there are things like Origami that you can rebase to, if you want to try. Can’t vouch for their stability, but it’s an option. If support is dropped you can rebase back to regular bazzite. Rebasing is easy and pretty safe, it basically acts like an update and switches out the system files, but you should back up your config files just in case the different DE’s don’t play nice with each others config settings. From what ublue developers have said this can cause problems or annoyances.

Or you could develop your own derivitive with bluebuild or something. I’m not sure how involved that requires you to be, but it’s probably easier than learning nixos.

Anything with docker set up OOTB, like Flatcar Linux

And a good docker container like: WG-Easy

You can make gnome more or less like mac with a few extensions, which works well in my experience. Extensions like apps menu, places indicator and dash to dock (or dash to panel) are useful.

You can make kde more or less like mac by sorting through a very comprehensive configuration gui, which is great for people who want it but not necessarily new users.

Is it this issue? - https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/issues/2344

Someone fixed a similar issue by setting their display color accuracy to “Prefer Efficency” instead of “Prefer Accuracy”

you can boot ostree:1 change the setting, run sudo ostree admin pin 1 then rebase back to testing (not reboot to ostree:0) that should hopefully work around it

The ublue releases (bazzite/bluefin/aurora) are tweaked to be set up and ready to go with minimal or no set up. You can switch between ublue and the normal fedora atomic distros, or even user customized variants, from what I understand. The root system will change, but anything installed under your user account will stay the same. The only problem that might occur between switching is that different desktop environments might overwrite some settings and cause problems that way. You would want a way to backup your config files just in case if you do a lot of switching.

This also means you can’t install multiple desktop environments side by side. Like if you wanted to choose between kde,gnome,xfce at the log in screen, it’s not possible under the atmoic distros. When i’ve done that on regular distros it would always result in a mess, and getting rid of a DE meant a lot of orphaned programs I didn’t want, so I avoid doing that, but this is a potential downside to the atomic distros. You would have to rebase and redownload stuff every time you switch DE.

Otherwise they are rock solid and basically designed to get you up and running as fast as possible, and be as stable as possible with seamless background updates. I’m running bluefin, and it’s the most user friendly and smooth experience on linux i’ve ever had.

I just switched to a ublue distro (bluefin) and think it’s great. These are designed from the ground up to be an “install it for a family member or friend and never have to touch it again” experience. They are based on Fedora. Bluefin has been the most trouble-free install of linux I’ve ever tried. I can’t say enough good things about it.

I would go with Aurora (essentially bluefin but with KDE instead of Gnome), unless they do a lot of gaming, in which case Bazzite-kde would probably work best (bazzite is more up-to-date which can mean more instability).

These are set up to use flatpak with a software center, so all gui apps can be installed from there and is similar to windows. It updates everything automatically in the background and only requires rebooting whenever you want to switch to the updated system. Also the immutable nature makes it hard to break, but if something does go wrong it makes it easy to roll back to the previous working install. There are also GTS versions of bluefin and aurora available, which are pinned to more stable releases so there’s even less chance of breakage.

Live USB installs aren’t stable yet so that might be an issue if you want to make sure hardware works before install, but you can install to a usb harddrive and boot off of that to check it out that way.

I’ve been running bluefin for about a week and I agree. One of the best things about these different distros is they install and configure a lot of things for you. Bluefin installs with flatpak, homebrew, distrobox, podman/docker, devcontainers configured and running on install, good peripheral support, good desktop tweaks, and sensible but easily removable default apps. Bazzite does something similar for gaming installs. It’s great. If there are common apps or configs that their users want they try to implement set up and running on install, if possible. The most friction free linux install I’ve ever had.