I find that many Linux users have a misconception about immutable distributions without knowing what it actually is. There is a lot of misinformation and generalization in the Internet about immutable distributions being “locked down”, “inflexible”, etc., when we could argue the same with many traditional distributions. In this article, we’ll look at what makes an immutable distribution, the concept of an immutable distribution versus implementations, misconceptions about immutable distributions (both pro and con), and why they exist in the first place.
    • Guenther_Amanita@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      Why? Can you elaborate further?
      Have you tried uBlue, a custom imaging system for Silverblue?

      Did the non-immutable Fedora irritate you too?

      • drwankingstein@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

  • taanegl@beehaw.org
    01·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Chewy@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • taanegl@beehaw.org
        01·
        1 year ago

        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.

  • superguy@lemm.ee
    01·
    1 year ago

    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.