atomicStan

I could see it becoming the future. But only under a couple of scenarios.

Scenario A: It becomes (strictly) better and/or easier than the alternative. Kinda like how systemd effectively replaced SysVinit within a couple of years, simply because it was a more sane alternative. But this is reliant on the read-only aspect being put in place without affecting existing workflows on traditional distros. So, as Fedora Atomic is the atomic distro I'm most familiar with, I'll provide explicit examples from it:

• Installing packages shouldn't take a reboot to take effect. I can see sysexts being leveraged for this eventually.
• Any commands that involve dnf should (somehow) continue to function. It could even be an alias (or something) that invokes something else entirely. I don't even think most users will care for what exactly happens in the background, as long as the functional expectation is being met.
• The previous two points shouldn't come at a (significant) speed loss.

Scenario B: It's enforced on us by (some of) our Linux overlords and/or expected by (parts of) the Desktop Linux stack. Kinda like how the GNOME desktop environment currently has dependencies that are systemd-components. Thus, requiring some hacking to make it work in its absence. Currently, I can only see some RHEL(-adjacent) projects committing to this.

But I think both of the above scenarios are at least 5 years away. While atomic/immutable distros enjoy a healthy (perhaps even generous) amount of development, AFAIK none of them are actually 100% feature-complete^[To be clear, it's probably at like 95% or so.] compared to their traditional counterparts. So, fixing (most of) the remaining edge cases to make migration possible for every enthusiast that even considers switching, should probably be their priority.

I didn't really mean it in the sense that the communities of different atomic/immutable engage regarding the trade-offs associated by their respective methods of achieving atomicity/immutability. And, honestly, I'd actually love to see more of that. Even if NixOS users would dunk on the rest, at least until the learning curves are brought up.

Instead, what we often find are unproductive threads like this one 😅. In which, naysayers and proponents act like they're engaging, but I simply fail to understand what's happening.

There's also a lot of zealous discourse on the subject of atomic/immutable distros.

Not the person you asked. But the only thing I can think of, would be how the flatpak's sandbox might cause friction. Most of the time, you won't even notice it. But, once every while, it shows its ugly face.

For example, the situation around native messaging is still a mess. This prevents e.g. your flatpak browser from communicating with your locally installed password manager. While a(n ugly) workaround exists, it's quite maddening that it hasn't been resolved in all these years 😅.

IIRC, historically, it was (one of) the first to do so. It took a significant time for (most^[Slackware, famously, continues to not have a dependency resolver. Though, they got their reasons.]) others to catch up.

still

Maybe. I honestly don't know either.

Many different solutions exist, even native ones. But I'd have to mention Sandboxie as probably the most popular option.

• Step 1. Upgrade to proactive security. Projects like HotCakeX' offer a streamlined method of attaining it.
• Step 2. Commit to best practices. There's a long list of this, but the short of it would be:
  • Uphold a strong backbone of secure software that has proven to be committed to safe practices.
  • Ensure that your system and/or software is always up-to-date.
  • Don't visit unsafe/untrusted websites. Don't click on shady/untrusted links.
  • Don't execute untrusted/unsafe files. Especially not with administrator's rights.
  • Sandbox all activities. So that even if you're compromised, that the adversary can only access very little beyond the binary/program/software itself.

uses apt

May I ask why you seem to be married to the use of apt?

~~Just couldn't pass up on the opportunity to insert this banger.~~

First of all, I’m sorry I can’t provide you with a video; I tried attaching it to the post but won’t let me attach any other than photos.

Gifs work. There are some pointers over here.

You seem to have the false notion that corporate distros are safe (or something). But, that's not true. Look e.g. at the demise of Clear Linux OS.

For (perhaps) a better assessment on whether a distro is well-established^[I.e. that it will not cease existing overnight.] or not, consider looking at the following factors:

• How long does it exist? Like, if it's old enough to drink, then that's definitely a good indication.
• How strong is its community? If there are literally millions of users, many of which actively contribute, then that's definitely a good thing.
• How active is its development? The Linux landscape is constantly evolving. Hence, adopting changes (or, at least, enabling them) is somewhat to be expected.
• Does it serve a distinct raison d'être? It simply has to offer a strong justification for its existence.
• Does it have any strong dependencies/contingencies? Here, a lack thereof is actually what's good.

TL;DR: If you want to be absolutely safe, then I'd recommend Arch, Debian or Gentoo.