I guess they are going the steamos route seeing as arch based.
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
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Will they be using btrfs snapshots or subvolumes to make it immutable?
Snapshots are subvolumes.
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Ingl, this sounds like exactly the thing I want. Immutability aside, this is how I use EndeavourOS right now, but more sophisticated.
I'm sold on it.
This article is far too hypey. One dude has started this initiative and needs people to work on his concept to get it off the ground. I'm not opposed to a red-hat free immutable system, but this one is so far from maturity this article is selling a first drawing like an almost finished product. Remind me in two years how this went.
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I thought we all agreed that "immutable" is a confusing term and that we should call it "atomic"
edit: I was wrong
I disagree, because they are not the same thing.
Immutable means read only root.
Atomic means that updates are done in a snapshotted manner somehow. It usually means that if an update fails, your system is not in a half working state, but instead will be reverted to the last working state, and that updates are all or nothing.
I create a btrfs snapshot before updates on my Arch Linux system. This is atomic, but not immutable.*
There is also "image based" which distros like ublue (immutable, atomic) are, but Nixos (also immutable and atomic) are not.
*only really before big updates tbh, but I know some people do configure snapshits before all updates.
Not all. Red Hat started this by naming their immutable distributions with "atomic" (but then not consistently...). Some people agreed, but not everyone.
How is atomic less confusing? Immutable means that something doesn't change, atomic means that it's the size of an atom or has nuclear energy
EDIT: I've learned that some people are overly pedantic about the meaning and practical use of the word "immutable", so much so that they decided to create a bigger confusion by giving another word a completely different and exclusive meaning
How could you install anything or change any setting if it "doesn't change" ?
Settings live in user space. Software exist in containers like AppImage, Flatpak or Distrobox. If something need deep system integration, they can be layered on top of the system in the user layer. Immutable does NOT mean less control. Just exerting control over the system in a different, usually more systematic, automatic and deterministic way.
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Atomic in software refers to an operation that cannot be interrupted, like the updates in these distros. Immutable is a more confusing term, as it leads users to believe that cannot control parts of the system, when in reality these distros still have tools to do so.
Immutable does not mean "not changing", but rather that you don't have the rights to change. If you take the immutable option away, then its changing again, like when you update your system. People who have a problem with the term say, "see its not immutable, the term is a lie!". Which I kind of agree, but somewhat conflicted.
Atomic is an attempt to create a new "meaning" with a word, that cannot be misunderstood. Its trying to avoid the situation of "Free" in example. But I don't like the term Atomic either, because it just suggest to me that everything is split into many little parts and is not self explanatory like Immutable. I'm conflicted here too.
I'm always conflicted.
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No? Why?
Who said that?
Fedora has pushed for the change by rebranding their immutable distros as Fedora Atomic Desktops, and these are likely the most popular immutable distros. Bazzite's homepage also describes the distro as atomic, but never mentions the term immutable.
Red Hat
What does atomic mean in this sense? That seems more confusing than immutable.
How could you install anything or change any setting if it was truly immutable?
Immutable OS makes sense in certain scenarios, but not in home computing.
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Atomic in software refers to an operation that cant be interrupted because it happens in one step. This one of the big selling points of atomic or immutable distros. Your system will not be left in a broken state by cancelling an update because updates do not take multiple steps, unlike traditional distros.
It means a change either applied completely and successfully, or not at all (think "atomic transactions" in databases).
Ooo damn that sounds exactly what I'd like to try.
On the other hand I feel like I'm too old for this shit. My system works fine, I understand everything, and things rarely break and never in an unrecoverable way.
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Maybe they'll fix the sddm custom theming? It's currently broken on all immutables and doesn't allow custom themes.
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Me using no systemd, no flatpak, no snap... I think I'll pass
I vote to kill snap
I can’t believe they used this as a pro for their distro…
I don't like Snap too, but it has some advantages over Flatpak. And unfortunately the most popular distribution still uses Snap. In example it is easier to create Snap packages ~~and Flatpak does not support CLI only applicatoins~~ ( Edit: my bad ) , but Snap does (something like grep in example). Also some may like it more that Snap relies on AppArmor instead using the custom solution of Flatpak.
All in all, its not like black and white which is better. I still wish only one of the formats would exist, because this is not the kind of fragmentation I wish to have. But both exist and the end user should decide which of them to kill.
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It says possibly snap, so we can hope...
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Makes sense that it includes snap given that KDE officially supports their apps packaged as snaps, unlike Gnome.
If I recall correctly, aren’t they going for an Arch base? I assume they’re going to be enabling AppArmor so that the snap sandboxing is mostly working, except for the patches Canonical have failed to upstream so far.
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I think gnome is working on the same sort of thing, read here.
I'm glad to see both going for an immutable os with flatpaks. It's so much more user friendly for the average person and if you are more technically inclined distrobox makes it a breeze to use it like a regular linux desktop.
I hope both do well
I use Karch, btw.