I could probably summarize your experience as “skill issue”.

I don’t understand the hype of immutables, or usability even.

I suppose this article/blogpost by Lennart Poettering should suffice. Though, this article/blogpost by Colin Walters is also cool.

I tried Bazzite today after Nobara nuked itself, and I couldn’t even paste my old Firefox profile since the actual folder apparently sits within the immutable folder structure.

This is simply false as pointed out by others already.

I didn’t even have time to reach the software limitations with how fast I tried the next distro.

You will have a very hard time on Linux with that mindset. And, to be honest, literally any OS you aren’t already familiar with.

Still hopping though, because apparently Fedora just nukes itself when you try to install codecs

I wouldn’t be surprised if you just searched this through your favorite search engine and settled with whatever random solution you came across instead of relying upon RPM Fusion’s documentation on the matter.

and I think I have about every major distro tested by now.

While this could be true, I wonder what prevented you from sticking with any one of them.

Linux is cursed.

It’s definitely a lot harder if you’ve got major skill issues.

Those definitely amount to a major difference. Thanks for clarifying!

Wait for Ubuntu Core Desktop to come out.

They offer ovpn configs that I can just add to the Network Manager, but a part of me doesn’t want to give up!

Does running the .run script do substantially and functionally more than putting the ovpn configs in Network Manager?

Been trying for days to install Private Internet Access’s client in a custom Bazzite image, but it’s slow-going to troubleshoot each failure to build, and I feel like I’m fighting GitHub more than the install script.

Have you contacted the Discord servers for Bazzite/uBlue and/or BlueBuild in hopes of resolving the issue?

They’re cool and very much willing to help out. They solved my issues a bunch of times with my own custom image. Perhaps, they are even capable of offering a solution to resolve the problem without requiring a custom image.

Wish ya good luck!

Thank you so much for correcting me! I’ll edit my earlier post to reflect this! Your work on Bazzite is much appreciated! Thank you!

Thanks for the clarification! We actually run very similar systems; I’m on the hardened Bluefin-dx image as per secureblue.

Regarding Steam, Bazzite -one of Bluefin’s uBlue siblings- actually switched over to RPM Fusion’s Steam due to issues with the Flatpak. EDIT: The former is false. The Deck images have always been on RPM Steam. Only the Desktop images moved to RPM Steam (from Distrobox-Arch) for support consistency reasons. Appreciation goes out to quarterlife@lemmy.sdf.org for correcting me!

I don’t know what exactly is the way to go for you. But I can suggest the following possibilities (from own experience):

• Install RPM Fusion’s Steam through layering with rpm-ostree.
• Use Steam bundled with Bazzite- Arch; this is what Bazzite used to use in the past.
• Or (very unconventional) use the Steam bundled with Conty.

Is this on one of Fedora’s images or on one of uBlue’s images? Regardless, could you specify what exactly we’re dealing with?

Lacking features

It’s important to mention that the specific way by which ‘immutability’ and all of its associations are implemented, is key to determine what possible limitations are. Perhaps to gain a better grasp on this, consider reading this blog post. Note that due to the (very) active development ‘immutable’ distros enjoy, not everything found within that article is accurate.

and having to take weird extra steps to get what I want and tweak the system the way I want.

Does uninstalling snapd on Kubuntu fall under this? Jokes aside, the way that ‘immutable’ distros want you to do stuff is simply unconventional compared to traditional distros. Heck, even the need to (soft-)reboot to apply changes to the base system is almost unheard of on traditional distros. However, unconventional does not necessarily imply weird. Care to elaborate when something goes from unconventional to weird?

I’m a bit of a power user and I’m wondering if a immutable distro could work for me over a regular one.

It depends on your priorities. There’s a ‘cost’ that comes with going ‘immutable’; mostly related to how it’s still relatively immature and/or unpopular. However, even in this state, there are problems it solves and tackles that traditional distros don’t.

Regarding ‘being a power user’, like what’s even the wildest thing you’d want to do?

Thanks for the reply and thanks for sharing your experiences!

Something super basic for example is OpenRazer in order to control the settings of my mouse and keyboard - the backend of OpenRazer exists as a DKMS module, and kernel modules seem to be a bit more difficult to install on an atomic distro than a “mutable” distro.

IIRC, the DKMS modules are included in uBlue images. Have you tried any of their images?

But I’ve been looking at immutable distros as a more stable alternative.

If “stable” is used in the context of “intended use entails no changes/updates to packages found in the repositories in between ‘long supported’ point releases”^[1], then it’s important to note that an ‘immutable’ distro as such does not exist; or at least is far from mainstream*.

If, however, "stable", instead, is used in the context of “less inclined to cause breakage upon (perhaps more frequent) updates”, then indeed; ‘immutable’ distros can definitely be beneficial. Heck, I would even argue that they are successful at providing more stable experiences. This is actually implied merely by design. And, thankfully, the ‘immutable’ distros have been able to deliver on this promise.

But, it sounds to me like it’s more adapted for smaller devices and IoT, like the Steam Deck or similar handheld devices.

They, indeed, make a lot of sense for these use cases. However, the use of ‘immutable’ distros on desktop is also pretty well established. Even if it’s currently (relatively) niche.

Have you installed an immutable distro on your PC?

Yup. Over two years ago, I switched cold turkey from Windows to Fedora Silverblue without any prior Linux experience. I’ve been very happy with it ever since. However, since over a year, I’ve been on uBlue. These are recommended over Fedora’s own images for a multitude of reasons; one of which being better on-boarding.

What distro did you use?

As previously mentioned; Fedora Silverblue. Back then, and even today, Fedora Atomic has been one of the most mature iterations. Other mature ‘immutable’ distros (i.e. Guix System and NixOS) require a lot more know-how by comparison.

What was your experience like?

I simply don’t see myself use traditional distros beyond special use cases. Literally all of my experiences with (semi-)rolling traditional distros^[2] (that I have engaged with through dual booting) ended with an unbootable system. By contrast, besides my first week, I can’t recall the need to resort to Fedora Atomic’s built-in rollback functionality to combat a non-booting system. It’s just been such a pleasant experience.

1. Besides those related to security.
2. Which include the likes of Arch, EndeavourOS and Nobara.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity for a refresh 😛. And thank you for the very civilized conversation. I wish you a great day!

Sure, but even in those “few cases” Testing will get them soon.

Didn’t I allude to that with:

"it doesn’t receive the security backports like Stable does nor does it receive them as soon as Unstable/Sid does.

Though I do notice that the above sentence contains an error that is perhaps misleading. By definition, Unstable/Sid doesn’t receive security backports. Instead, the updates related to security are (usually) first received in Unstable/Sid. So, the above sentence tried to portray the following picture related to security:

Unstable/Sid ~ Stable >> Testing

I did read at some point that Testing may receive security updates later than stable, might be in those cases in which backports come straight from unstable.

That’s basically the point I’ve been making 😉.

I think the only remaining point of contention is the degree by which Stable does receive security backports right after Unstable/Sid does while Testing only receives it later.

Honestly, I don’t know the specifics. But Debian Testing’s wiki entry notes security concerns multiple times. And it’s all related to the fact that they don’t receive the security backports as soon as Stable receives them. The explanation related to security updates concerning the three distinct branches is covered in even more detail over here.

Basically, after I’ve read all of that, it’s clear as day that security is not a priority on Testing. And while band-aid solutions do exist, it’s simply not designed to be secure.

Found on the same page you cited from (even same paragraph):

“Backports are packages taken from the next Debian release (called “testing”), adjusted and recompiled for usage on Debian stable. Because the package is also present in the next Debian release, you can easily upgrade your stable+backports system once the next Debian release comes out. (In a few cases, usually for security updates, backports are also created from the Debian unstable distribution.)”

Thanks for the reply!

Devuan Ceres probably makes the most sense indeed. Wish ya good luck with it!

FWIW, while it defaults to runit instead, I still felt the need to mention Void Linux.

Read this for the most complete and comprehensive answer on the matter.

TL;DR: Like Fedora Atomic, it utilizes OCI images for its immutability. However, while Fedora Atomic combines this with libostree/OSTree for git-like management of your system, Vanilla OS (instead) keeps it relatively simple with just A/B partioning; which indeed is somewhat reminiscent to what’s found on Android.

Am upgrading from thinkpad to framework 16 with amd. Looking for distro reccommendations.

I would start looking at what’s supported to begin with.

I did the whole distro chooser quiz but didnt help much.

FYI, it isn’t as helpful as you would hope and hasn’t been updated in quite a while. Don’t be too much bothered with the result. But thanks for sharing some tidbits from the quiz as it helps the community to better help you!

avoid systemd

Are you sure you want this?

stable

Does this refer to unchanging (for long periods of time except for security updates)? Or, instead, for being less inclined to break after an update?

Is testing/unstable got wayland?

I don’t recommend going for (Debian’s/Devuan’s) testing (branch) as it targets a peculiar niche that I fail to understand; e.g. it doesn’t receive the security backports like Stable does nor does it receive them as soon as Unstable/Sid does. Unstable/Sid could work, but I would definitely setup (GRUB-)Btrfs + Timeshift/Snapper to retain my sanity.

are they reliable enough?

Depends on how reliable you want them to be. OOTB, their reliability definitely ain’t great, though.

If so what do I go with.

Consider answering all questions found in this comment and we’ll be better equipped to help you out with this.

Also hows the hardware comparability with framework i assume it wont be too bad to get set up.

Overall, it’s pretty good; epecially so on the supported distros.

Btw, you strike me as a (relatively) new user that doesn’t seem to have a good understanding on Linux yet. Is this correct?

TIL that Tails predates all the distros mentioned in my earlier comment and it also predates Whonix. So thank you for mentioning that! (It’s by about 3 years if anyone is wondering; Tails in 2009; Kicksecure, Qubes OS and Whonix in 2012; secureblue in 2023.)

So, the reason I didn’t even mention Tails, is because I (frankly) don’t regard it as a daily driver meant for general use. However, I might be completely wrong on this. So please feel free to correct me.

However, even if Tails would be excellent as a daily driver, the problem related to reliance on backports for security updates still persists. Furthermore, while its protection against forensics is arguably superior to anything else out there (including Qubes OS), its overall security model is not something special. Even if -for the sake of argument- we’d regard its security superior over both Kicksecure and secureblue, it still wouldn’t make a chance against Qubes OS’ security model.

May as well contribute my own 😜.

I’m an absolute sucker for exquisitely hardened distros. Hence, distros like Qubes OS and Kicksecure have rightfully caught my interest. However, the former’s hardware requirements are too harsh on the devices I currently own. While the latter relies on backports for security updates; which I’m not a fan of. Thankfully, there is also secureblue.

Contrary to the others, secureblue is built on top of an ‘immutable’ and/or atomic base distro; namely Fedora Atomic. By which:

• It’s protected against certain attacks.
• Enables it to benefit from more recent advancements and developments that benefit security without foregoing robustness.

If security is your top priority, Qubes OS is the gold standard. However, secureblue is a decent (albeit inferior) alternative if you prefer current and/or ‘immutable’/atomic distros.