this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025

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Immutable Distro Opinions (www.linuxfordevices.com)

submitted 4 months ago by Kroxx@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.ml

240 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I recently took up Bazzite from mint and I love it! After using it for a few days I found out it was an immutable distro, after looking into what that is I thought it was a great idea. I love the idea of getting a fresh image for every update, I think for businesses/ less tech savvy people it adds another layer of protection from self harm because you can't mess with the root without extra steps.

For anyone who isn't familiar with immutable distros I attached a picture of mutable vs immutable, I don't want to describe it because I am still learning.

My question is: what does the community think of it?

Do the downsides outweigh the benefits or vice versa?

Could this help Linux reach more mainstream audiences?

Any other input would be appreciated!

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[–] Cris16228@lemmy.today 2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Could you share some pics (without anything private ofc) of bazzite? I wanted to try it but I couldn't use it as live distro. My main problem is arch because I'm used to apt and I find pacman or whatever it uses difficult for me (nothing I can't learn ofc)

I love the idea of getting a fresh image for every update

What do you mean? Thanks

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Isn't bazzite fedora-based? Meaning you use dnf instead of apt or pacman.

[–] priapus@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Since it's immutable, you'll probably not be using DNF much.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Good point!

[–] node815@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I use Aurora Linux which is the sister one to Bazzite, both are Fedora 41 based images. They strongly encourage using the FlatPak approach to installing software. After using it for a few weeks now, I can see why. One of the things with the immutable setup is once you install a program, you have to reboot to get it to run, but with Flatpak, it isn't so. I think Flatpak has it's merits - if they have an app which you normally use, then it's easy enough to install and go.

For the Fedora side of things, you can "layer" apps over it using the rpm-ostree but they encourage you to only do that as a last resort. One of the things they enable you to do is install additional OS's containerized which integrate with the desktop environment. For example, right now, I can only run Scrcpy in a different OS (That I've been able to figure out so far), so I just spin up an Arch OS container and launch it from there, and can interface with my phone normally. As I understand too, the developers plan on disabling layering in a future release. To be honest, I don't think I have but one thing layered and that's my Label Printer's driver.

The benefit for me using the immutable system and this is the hardest thing to grasp for a lot of people including myself is that it truly is set and forget type of updating. With Arch, you can become sort of addicted to checking for new releases, and I'm not going to lie, it's amazing to get some of the newest releases of your favorite app or browser especially when they fix something. With Arch, it's generally there. With my system, I turned on auto updates, so it's not too uncommon to bring the system up in the morning and see that updates have been given (I don't notice them usually). It's nice not having to worry about that as much.

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[–] Cris16228@lemmy.today 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I don't know what it uses and as someone who always used apt, pacman or dnf is hard to understand

Edit: Not that I can't learn.. Just saying is hard for me

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[–] jollyrogue@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago

I need to run immutable distros more, and I need to figure out how to roll my own images.

Desktop side, I need certain things in the base image rather than adding more layers or using a container. Things like rsync, nvim, git, curl, lynx, etc.

Would immutable distros help reach more desktop audiences? Perhaps. It’s more about applications though. The biggest help has been electron apps and the migration to web apps. The Steam Deck is successful because it has applications people want.

Server side, they look really promising for bare metal servers. Provided, there is an easy way to compile custom images. Being able to easily rollback to a known good image is very enticing, as you point out.

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