Linux

turn off. immutable

Since the idea is that the "root partition" is immutable, serious question:

How do you fix a hardware config issue or a distro packaging / provision issue in an immutable distro?

Several times in my Linux history I've found that, for example, I need to remove package-provided files from the ALSA files in /usr/share/alsa in order for the setup to work with my particular chipset (which has a hardware bug). Other times, I've found that even if I set up a custom .XCompose file in my $HOME, some applications insist on reading the Compose files in /usr/share/X11/locale instead, which means I need to be able to edit or remove those files. In order to add custom themes, I need to be able to add them to /usr/share/{icons,themes}, since replicating those themes for each $HOME in the system is a notorious waste of space and not all applications seem to respect /usr/local/share. Etc.

Unless I'm mistaken on how immutable systems work, I'm not sure immutable systems are really useful to someone who actually wants to or needs to power user Linux, or customize past the "branding locking" that environments like Gnome have been aiming for for like a decade.

From an advertising perspective, it's important to think about who you're targeting. Who are your likely customers? Certainly there are some based on the strengths that you raised.

However, some people are definitely not a good target audience, and some people is actually a very large group of people. There are a lot of current and potential users who essentially want the standard major applications to work, and they're not going to touch the root partition, and they want things to be very simple. For people like that, Debian or Ubuntu or Fedora already do what they want. And these major operating systems have been around for so long that people will naturally be more confident using them, because they were their friends have experience, or because they think the organization has more stability because of its experience.

Of course a lot of things depend on how you define words, but to me the above paragraph describes the mainstream audience, and I don't think you're going to have much luck reaching them, because I don't think the thing you're trying to sell gives them extra value. In other words, it's not solving a problem for them, so why should they care.

what does the community think of it?

Everyone has their own opinion, personally I think they're a great idea and have lots of great applications. But just like rolling vs non-rolling release it's a personal and application dependant choice.

Do the downsides outweigh the benefits or vice versa?

Again, depends, for my personal computer I wouldn't use it because I think it could get complicated to get specific things to work, but for closed hardware like the Deck or even a fairly stable desktop used as a gaming system it's perfect.

Could this help Linux reach more mainstream audiences?

It could, it can also hamper it because people might start to try solutions that only work until next boot and not understanding why, or having problems getting some special hardware to work (more than it would be a mutable distro). But there is a great counter to this which is that once it's running it will be very difficult to break by user error.

At the end of the day I think it's a cool technology but that people should know what they're getting into, just like when choosing rolling vs non-rolling distro, it's not about what's better, but what suits your needs best.

The whole point of Linux is to tinker, immutable distros destroy the whole point, not to mention, it's a very windows-approach

Not to mention there's no guarantee if security even with Immutable distros

I have a really hard time getting Aurora working the way all my other Linux devices so that are running some form of Ubuntu (Mate or Bodhi). With that said, it's been very stable and i like not being interrupted with packages to install while working on things...

Mixed bag review. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

I don't work in tech but I love to tinker , have a home lab etc. I love using Linux for this, been on Linux for close to 20 years.

Got a steam deck little over a year ago, it was my first immutable

I just moved to an immutable silver blue. Been loving it so far. There's a few things I have issues with, but it's "just works". I still distro hop and fuck around breaking my system for fun from time to time, hahahah. But having my main system on immutable has been great.