So, I recently got interested with the idea of an atomic distro, particularly the derivatives of Fedora Kinoite (currently testing Aurora).
What’s your experience with them? What are the unexpected troubles and did you manage to resolve them? Do you feel it’s worth it to learn the nuances of their use?
Also, on a personal testing note, did you manage to properly run AppImages and what did you do to make it happen? I couldn’t properly run them either natively or via Fedora toolbox on Aurora. (Also, I borked Aurora within 4 hours of trying to install Outline VPN that consistently had issues with tunneling).
I haven’t used one, but my guess would be they’re fine if you’re a “web browsing and email” sort, but most of us here probably aren’t, and then you’re going to have pain when you need to install some tool that expects to be installed globally, because so many pieces of open source software assume the “spew files all over /usr” installation method.
Feels like you’d be spending a lot of time fighting expectations in the same way that Nix has to.
As I have been using Silverblue for enough time, I would say that splitting between the base OS and the apps is an important thing but atomicity/immutability of the base system is not so much.
For example: I also use QubesOS and it gives quite immutable-like experience while the base distro is a regular non-atomic Fedora.
By using flatpaks (or snaps) or tools like distrobox on a regular distro you will get a similar experience.
The main think is to cut dependencies between apps and the os and to be able to update them independently.
And then, when you have the apps separated, there are just not many reasons against choosing an immutable distro for the base system because it gives you additional bonus things as safe updates and rollbacks. But you can use a non-immutable distro as well if you want a specific or a niche distro (for example Chimera Linux or Alpine).
I love to install Atomic distributions for less technically savvy people. Reducing the conflict and issue potential.
If we’re talking email and docs and stuff, doesn’t it make sense to install something like Debian, properly set it up and leave it be?
Sounds like an option that really really wouldn’t ever bork.
That’d work, too. But doing that I still had to occasionally/rarely fix my relatives laptops. I think after some of the major updates and the stupid Brother printer drivers messed up and needed manual intervention. But Debian is pretty stable. But with that said, it’s not the only option. I can imagine an atomic distro doing a good job, too. And being low maintenance, or at least fail in a way my mom could handle. I mean that’s how some modern devices work anyways. Be atomic, have A/B updates…
Atomic distributions have read only filesystems for nearly anything but /home, it makes it way more reliant against loss of power then just a normal Debian. I had a few people with distributions that broke due to filesystems corruption.
It is more complex not less. Maybe one day it will be hassle free but that day isn’t right now
It’s pretty useful for systems you want to be reliable but don’t need too many customisations (like Bazzite on gaming machines).
Although if we’re counting NixOS, it’s the declarative config aspect that is the main selling point for me, with atomic updates just being part of it.
I’m testing OpenSUSE Kalpa on an old machine, and I guess it’s alright if you do standard normie things. I found there are tools I want that aren’t available. There are usually a way around that, but it takes some faffing around. But I tend to want to customize and control my system in a way that is ideologically almost antithetical to immutable distros, so, meh. But YMMV.
