I recently switched my server over to running Plex and Home Assistant in Docker. I like the ease of transfer (just move my compose file and one directory where I have stored all the configs and I’m set) as well as the simple permissions management to give access to directories.
I have only used Fedora briefly, but I am considering it instead of my usual openSUSE because it is “officially supported” for the Framework 13 I have on order. I saw the immutable versions and the idea seems cool though I don’t really understand what new I would need to learn or really what benefits it would have.
Is the concept overkill for a single-user laptop?
Longtime Debian and Arch veteran here. I moved most of my workstations to Silverblue earlier this year (maybe 8 months ago now), and I’ve been very happy overall.
There is a bit of a learning curve if you aren’t familiar with Flatpak or container-based workflows, assuming you wish to embrace those elements, but the curve is nowhere near as steep or unconventional as NixOS.
I love the automated updates. The flexibility to rebase or rollback the core OS on the fly, without any extra work, is great too. For example, it’s very easy to test out beta releases, remixes, and preconfigured software bundles like uBlue.
I still use Arch for 99% of my command line tasks, inside a container managed by distrobox.
I strongly believe that Flatpak is the future of Linux software deployment, and although the format still has its kinks, it is already quite mature and will only get better as more and more upstream developers adopts its use.
Have you checked out OpenSUSE MicroOS at all? It’s similar to Silverblue. Runs great on my Framework 13 with Intel 13th Gen.
I wouldn’t be too concerned with “officially” supported Linux on the Framework. It is a very Linux friendly machine. The folks they have supporting Linux are active in the Framework forums and very helpful.
I eventually went back to my tried and true Debain. I loved the immutable OS thing for all the reasons people have listed here. My one issue was direct access to external devices can be a pain. IE: I just could not get USB passthrough working with virt-viewer after all my fiddiling.
I like Kinoite, have been happy for a year or so (how time flies). Pretty bulletproof, automatic updates and rollbacks, lotsa good stuff. One minor but relevant gotcha is it doesn’t like docker particularly much, I found the path of least resistance was to move to podman (which is more secure, can be easily turned into (–user) system.d units and has a cool auto update feature), podman-compose is your friend…
Immutability is useful from a sysadmin standpoint because it solves a couple problems. It’s a little easier to secure a system if you can know that, in fact, files outside the home directory have not been modified, and also, it’s a little easier to keep systems running because programs can’t just shit on each other’s files etc.
Unless these two are problems for you, you’re signing up to re-learn how to use Linux, and tbh not very elegantly, for basically no real gains at this time. Immutability has potential as a concept, but Red Hat’s approach is super weird and not very efficient. They have a tool that allows you to manage filesystem trees, and then they extended this tool with RPM to allow you to compose custom filesystem trees at install/upgrade time. This approach, in my experience, is shockingly inefficient if you need to add any custom packages to your base tree and you install updates with any frequency.
If you’re a sysadmin rolling out updates to workstations maybe once a month, these aren’t really issues, but for daily use, it didn’t seem worth it to me just yet, especially since we don’t really have any neat separation of code and config like you get with Docker. You can’t just zip up your home directory and move it to a new Silverblue installation and have your user back yet (there’s work in this direction with systemd-homed, likely once it’s good enough this will become standard, but also, that’s not an “immutability” feature). I believe /etc is mounted rw, which is a step in this direction, but until lots of stateful stuff gets moved out of /etc that isn’t going to be portable in the same way a Docker config is.
EDIT For a comparison of a different approach to immutability that includes a different bundle of tradeoffs, you can also look at OpenSUSE’s MicroOS. The TL;DR is that it’s easier to customize the base system, but it locks you into btrfs and it’s not as robust overall – https://www.ypsidanger.com/comparing-opensuse-microos-to-fedora-silverblue-37/ https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/understanding-differences-between-rpm-ostree-and-opensuses-transactional-update/84289/3
I just wanted to point out that you pretty much can just tarball your user directory and drop it into a fresh system. If you embrace the Flatpak and container-based workflow, it’s incredibly easy to be up and running in no time. Obviously, containers and flatpaks aren’t unique to image-based distros, but are perhaps less common in traditional distros.
Sure, you’ll need to add a printer back, or reconnect to wifi networks, but your user and/or dev environment will carry over, and with a couple of commands, any package overlays and flatpaks will be reinstalled and ready to go.
I found flatpaks and containerization to be the only real learning curve with Silverblue, and only because I hadn’t used them previously. Compared to the learning curve and unorthodox approach of NixOS, Silverblue itself is as easy as using vanilla Fedora Workstation.
I mean, is this true in any way that hasn’t been true of Linux since nearly forever? You can always put your /home folder on a separate partition, install a new system, and as long as you make sure the UID of your new user matches the UID of the old user, the process is exactly the same. Just reinstall your apps and you’re good to go. I used to do this to keep configuration/data between reinstalls. EDIT – as opposed to a genuinely stateless user config, as systemd-homed is working towards
There difference is, to flatpaks and containers are in home, so you keep those even after a fresh install of you keep home.
It’s freaking great, specially in a work machine, to reinstall after breaking something and be able to just continue almost as if nothing had happened.
