What’s the difference? No matter how hard I look, most of their websites just consist of them advertising that they are immutable.
Guix System is wildly different
NixOS is the new “I use arch btw.”
Well, it is pretty nice …
I use both, btw.
I see lots of people recommending immutable distros to new users as if they are able to debug the inevitable breakages that occur or difficulty installing external programs.
This goes right with recommending Mint for gaming where Wayland is experimental and everything else is behind by several versions.
I’d say Mint is fine for gaming, as long as your hardware is supported. I’m using it with an Nvidia GPU on X11 and I can play all the games I want to play (Steam is Steam after all). My main gripe is that multi-monitor VRR doesn’t work on X11, but it hasn’t pushed me to another distro just yet…
For people/beginners that mostly want to game on a computer, I’d say that actually something “immutable” like Bazzite might be one of the best options.
Is Wayland better for gaming than X?
For basic gaming the experience should be at the very least about equal for all GPU vendors right now. If you want anything fancy beyond that, like HDR or properly paced and multi-monitor VRR then Wayland is the only way to even have a chance of it working.
I’ve certainly found so. X11 is on life support at this point.
I’ve had multiple instances where games performed better on Wayland than on x.
Yeah this I don’t understand. I do use immutable distros and quite like them(Bazzite/Aurora/Kinoite) but I would never recommend them to a new user to Linux. They just work too differently than most other distros so like 90% of the documentation you might find for other programs is pretty much useless. Like if you look up some piece of software and it says use your package manager to install, then what? It’s usually easy enough to solve if you read the distro’s docs and use their recommended approach(flatpak, brew, AppImage etc) but that’s already probably way too advanced for someone new too Linux.
Some use an A/B system like Android. Others use more complex systems with image trees.
Package managers differ and also ways you can customize the images before/after downloading.
uBlue for example is heavily based on cloud technology and make building custom images with additional packages very easy.
BlendOS downloads packages and builds an image locally, making it easier to customize.
Others I haven’t looked at as close, but I’m sure there are plenty of differences
That’s the problem
Why do I need someone on Lemmy to tell me this when they have a whole 10 or so page website that could just as well detail this instead of the usual „Hey, your keyboard works on this distro”?
I suppose most of the website is about the difference from traditional distros rather than the difference from other immutables. Still, maybe you have a point. Go and submit a pull request to some of those websites! Write a good website inclusion in a feedback form! Join a team and help them out!
most websites are made for distributing ads, I don’t really browse much since most of it is generated by ai anyway
the real useful information can be found on forums or websites like lemmy
Ah yes the old “Join our Discord” rather than having anything beneficial being indexed
Okay, I get what an immutable distro is. I get it’s advantages in security/safety. But can someone please explain why this matters? Like, how much safer is this really? I don’t understand the cost/benefit ratio of having an immutable core, especially since compromising the core will probably require fully compromising one or more privileged processes first, at which point it would be game over for a mutable distro as well.
It’s mostly useful for stability in appliances and reproducibility in large scale deployments.
IMO, I don’t think immutability makes sense for desktop use. The whole point of a desktop is to make it personalized.
You can do tons of personalization on immutable distros. It just doesn’t work the way you’re used to. I use Aurora and it’s an excellent tinkerer’s OS.
Post some screenshot bro
Of what?
I think the biggest advantage for my use case is the no fuzz aspect. In the rare case something goes wrong I can reboot and select the previous version that worked without a problem. Also the ease of mind knowing I can’t really fuck up my machine, as the important parts are immutable. Other than that I enjoy having everything gaming related already configured correctly as I use bazzite - but that’s probably also true for non immutable gaming oriented distros.
Honestly, that’s the same thing I got with BTRFS+snapper. It creates a snapshot before and after any Package installation. In case anything goes wrong I can just go back to a previous snapshot. And on top of that I can easily install native packages and don’t lose any disk space to multiple partitions.
I’ve come to despise immutable operating systems since first encountering them in Android.
Precisely this is what I was about to comment, Thanks. Let me add that I’m using uBlue KDE flavor (Aurora) and don’t get me wrong, I love it… but for many reasons I’d rather not be using an immutable distro. As a personal decision. I prefer the Snapper approach, it gives you the benefit without any of the ‘costs’. But that’s how I see the ‘other differences’. To me, an experienced user and programmer, these ‘features’ are drawbacks. Immutable distros are quite good for non-power users (or whatever we may call them). Anyone without enough experience to understand the output of
env | grep PATH(to put it in some random terms). If you want to fiddle with your system, customize the shell, etc… some simple stuff that made me fall in love with Linux might be just too difficult in an immutable system… at least this was my experience as a +10 year Linux user. Just adding ZSH to the distro is somewhat difficult enough, so the distro mantainers added a ‘just recipe’ (which is just a Makefile, see uBlue ujust docs) to do the stuff you would consider normal if you had any CLI experience; so stuff like tweaking your system (e.g. in the past I’ve used arch btw) will now be alienated from usual sources like simple online documentation… But I had to try this to get to know it. So, all in all, I think these immutable distros are great for someone who just starts on Linux or programming, and forces them to keep a clean home directory, nothing crazy like conda, pip install, pipx, etc. which I’ve learn as a dev to use; and have full knowledge of what they do with my env. Forced me to use devcontainer, cool… I guess… So, that’s the “safety” that I got from an immutable system, just being forced to keeping it tidy. Not bad, specially for a rolling distro like Fedora (the base for universal blue/ aurora.)Great points, but I’m on the opposite side while being in a similar user group. I never used Arch, but I used Gentoo for a few years and did LFS a couple times. Now I’m using Aurora/Bazzite on my workstations. I hack around on my machines a lot but sometimes I just like stuff that works too. When I need to get some development done, I don’t want to run into the weird bit of configuration left over from some previous project. I like that it pushes users towards encapsulation mechanisms like flatpaks and devcontainers. It keeps the core cleaner and more stable. The tradeoffs of having to bake extra packages into a container somewhere usually aren’t too bad.
SUSE Micro uses btrfs + snapper to make read-only snapshots for it to be immutable. So, yes it’s very nearly the same.
How would you fuck up your machine by installing packages? Hell, get a reasonable package manager and package installation frontend (and a reasonable brain between your ears if that’s the problem). I can’t see how anyone might get their machines into an useless or unbootable state considering that any useful package manager (even minimalist ones like aptitude or blank apt-get) will inform you what it’s going to install and unistall. If I see, that my choice is going to remove the complete DIE I am using plus X, or even GRUB, I lknow there’s something wrong with my selection and abort.
“Yes, do as I say”
A power outage during install.
Trying out experimental stuff.
Uninstalling critical packages.
Someone at $distribution fucked up packaging.
You could just as well ask why an immutable system must be immutable. The safeguards are not there for normal operation. They are supposed to help you with fatal irregularities.
…supposed you’re using a distro that isn’t broken, of course. You can’t drive a car that doesn’t start, either. You’re using an exception to prove the general case. That’s not a valid argument.
Why would you expect the general case to go wrong? Of course an error is the exception. Cars don’t have seatbelts and airbags for general driving operation. They are there for the exceptional case something goes wrong. Most people will never need them in their life.
I don’t see how this contradicts my statement. You can’t make a general comparison between specimina of anything if one of your samples is broken.
Finally! Thank you. Makes lots of sense. I’ve fucked up at least two systems in my life by messing with drivers/settings when I didn’t know what I was doing. That would have certainly helped. I’ll have to check it bazzite. I game too through Steam/Proton and it’s not exactly a 100% match in terms of performance when compared to Windows.
I decided to go with an immutable distro for my first Linux gaming PC because immutable distros are as idiot proof as you can get. I like that I can’t really mess anything up and if something does break, I can rollback to a previous version. I’m sure there are ways to setup rollback for other distros but I’m not a Linux person so I don’t really know what I’m doing and letting Bazzite handle everything for me made it a perfect fit.
Everything has been smooth sailing with Bazzite so far.
Preventing supply chain attacks for one.
Nix os is on the fence tho. It is immutable, but got hot reload so…
It’s not just debatable, it’s beside the point. NixOS is declarative, trivially reproducible and natively container-ready, that’s what makes it so great.
Until you realise that you need to learn a whole programming language to run one executable outside of the package repos
I do respect nix, but it ain’t for me
Just ‘steam-run’ that shit. (It creates a regular linux-like environment without manually setting the LD path)
I use it to run random git repos.
I’d rather have YAML than the mindfuck of a language nix uses
[ This program prints "Hello World!" and a newline to the screen; its length is 106 active command characters. [It is not the shortest.] This loop is an "initial comment loop", a simple way of adding a comment to a BF program such that you don't have to worry about any command characters. Any ".", ",", "+", "-", "<" and ">" characters are simply ignored, the "[" and "]" characters just have to be balanced. This loop and the commands it contains are ignored because the current cell defaults to a value of 0; the 0 value causes this loop to be skipped. ] ++++++++ Set Cell #0 to 8 [ >++++ Add 4 to Cell #1; this will always set Cell #1 to 4 [ as the cell will be cleared by the loop >++ Add 2 to Cell #2 >+++ Add 3 to Cell #3 >+++ Add 3 to Cell #4 >+ Add 1 to Cell #5 <<<<- Decrement the loop counter in Cell #1 ] Loop until Cell #1 is zero; number of iterations is 4 >+ Add 1 to Cell #2 >+ Add 1 to Cell #3 >- Subtract 1 from Cell #4 >>+ Add 1 to Cell #6 [<] Move back to the first zero cell you find; this will be Cell #1 which was cleared by the previous loop <- Decrement the loop Counter in Cell #0 ] Loop until Cell #0 is zero; number of iterations is 8 The result of this is: Cell no : 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Contents: 0 0 72 104 88 32 8 Pointer : ^ >>. Cell #2 has value 72 which is 'H' >---. Subtract 3 from Cell #3 to get 101 which is 'e' +++++++..+++. Likewise for 'llo' from Cell #3 >>. Cell #5 is 32 for the space <-. Subtract 1 from Cell #4 for 87 to give a 'W' <. Cell #3 was set to 'o' from the end of 'Hello' +++.------.--------. Cell #3 for 'rl' and 'd' >>+. Add 1 to Cell #5 gives us an exclamation point >++. And finally a newline from Cell #6I love writing yaml as a nix expression. That shit locks my flake.
Man doesnt even know distrobox exists
(Or flatpak of appimages or any other containers)
Good luck even finding something not in nixpkgs though
Good luck even finding something not in nixpkgs though
One of my favorite apps actually wasn’t in nixpkgs (don’t worry, I fixed that). But I was pretty surprised to learn that it wasn’t there.
I’d say what it is, but I’d be doxxing myself.
Well true but that ain’t native.
Also, great exemple: blender launcher. I work with multiple versions of blenders, and it’s a must have.
If you’d prefer native to using an unpopular tool thats archived since 2023, try this site.
All you have to do is click on the revision you want to install, and it provides instructions to install it (having the benefit of being actually using the native package manager instead of just storing some binaries somewhere exclusive to the app)
Surprised there was a non-nix way to achieve this honestly, even if it is a bit hackey
If you want quick and dirty, use steam-run!
I was more interested in using it as a server os, so I used it for mine… But would go to a classic Debian as soon as I need to rebuild the whole os due to some breakage. As a docker box? It’s fine.
You need to learn a whole programming language to install an AppImage or Flatpak?
Flatpaks are actually mutable. Appimage no idea.
But the claim is that you need to learn nix to install apps that aren’t in the nix repos, which isn’t true.
You can. And then you can even contribute that back upstream and make it available in the repos, but that’s not a requirement if what you need to to get an app to run on your system that isn’t currently packaged for it.
Noob question for you: what does “trivially reproducable” mean?
Basically, I could send you my configuration file (and lock file) and you could run a single command to get a system that looks/runs identical to mine.
Nix’s ‘immutability’ is, as I understand it, quite a different idea to the others.
I just don’t get the hype of immutable. Sure, it’s not easy to break and can be better for security, but it really does defeat the purpose of Linux freedom. It’s only really good for absolute and total beginners (meaning those who aren’t tech savvy), and for home console style PCs.
I would argue it’s the opposite of being good with beginners. Having used many distros for years, with most of my time spent in Arch and NixOS, nix basically follows zero Linux conventions and requires you to learn a new language, learn the conventions of the nix community and ecosystem (channels vs flakes, home manager, etc)
I primarily use nix but it’s specifically because I can write nix files and use them anywhere, so I’m a hobbyist, not a beginner
Mint is good for total beginners. Arch is good for those that really want to learn how Linux works. Nix is for those that want a reproducible system, not beginners
Nix is quite a different experience to the other immutable distros though.
You still have freedom. Putting “read only” on some files isn’t taking away fundamental freedom, it’s a design choice. You can still meddle with it if you go further up the chain (e.g. make your own OS fork), just like you can meddle with your normal, pre-packaged Linux kernel if you want to compile it yourself.
I think even the most power of power users could appreciate an immutable distro in the right situation: if it’s the right fit and you don’t need to tweak those details, immutability gives you some technical benefits as a trade-off.
I personally just don’t want to mess with “the core” of my PC
I like to install a lot of stuff from all around, and usually they all have these different dependencies that I might have to install separately… I use immutable because I want to know that I can purge any of that stuff easily without messing with anything else, because it’s all separated from each other.
An example on the windows side is a Tetramino stacking game called “DTET”. It’s so old that I had to install some runtime from Visual Basic 6 to run it. When I no longer need DTET, am I going to remember to remove it?
With immutable, I can just nuke whatever container I installed the program in if need be.
