I kinda wanna try an immutable distro.
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@drq ok but to me it's a terrible idea.
I tried to use steamdeck as a PC with it's original OS and it's not good if you want to use some exotic software or use it for development, for multiple reasons:
1. Remounting rootfs as rw means your changes will not persist until next update. (well, duh!) In my case it was worse, by default rootfs on steamos isn't that big, so it's very easy to run out of free space.
2. If you use flatpak, the software you're looking might either be not packaged or be useless in a container. Pretty much the same if you plan to use any other container like docker.
3. Nix.... is Nix. Nuff said.
4. gentoo prefix/pkgsrc/homebrew are fine if you know what to expect with them, like pkgsrc and gentoo would force you building software from source code, not sure about homebrew, I have a suspicion that prebuilt packages only exist for Mac.
All in all, I wouldn't say that immutable distros are bad but depending on how you use your computer experience might be rough. -
@mischievoustomato @drq @tiredbun idk I still think of it like some Mac exclusive thing.
I only used it once, and it's downstream fork for PPC Macs. -
@mischievoustomato @drq @tiredbun idk I still think of it like some Mac exclusive thing.
I only used it once, and it's downstream fork for PPC Macs. -
@drq >depending on how you use your computer
btw I wouldn't even recommend it to people who are sure they only gonna use their computer for surfing the web.
because it's impossible to know for certain that you won't need to install some unusual software tomorrow. Idk printer/scanner drivers for that HP in your office for example. Or that proprietary crap enforced by your government.
Sure, there is one largely deployed immutable distro, which is Android, and it allows to do a lot of stuff. But at this point... do you really need a PC?
In modern days I think PC should be ready to do something that's your phone can't and turning PC into it is a step back.@a1ba @drq
I think immutable distros as in like, SteamOS, are definitely not a good fit for proper pc usage, but stuff that has mutability but it's restricted by having separate temporary changes and ones you can rollback (nix-shell and nixos-rebuild on nix, overlayfs and rpm layering on fedora atomic, etc.) are actually pretty neat. -
@mischievoustomato @drq good for them because _just_ flatpaks isn't enough.
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@a1ba @drq
I think immutable distros as in like, SteamOS, are definitely not a good fit for proper pc usage, but stuff that has mutability but it's restricted by having separate temporary changes and ones you can rollback (nix-shell and nixos-rebuild on nix, overlayfs and rpm layering on fedora atomic, etc.) are actually pretty neat.@tiredbun @drq well because it's a gaming console in disguise.
None of suggested solutions to a problem that never existed before immutable distros became a thing, unfortunately, don't help with global modifications.
Real computer is a tool first. Immutable distros turn it into a toy.
Which again isn't a bad thing... maybe if you can sacrifice one piece of hardware and rely on another as a tool. -
@tiredbun @drq well because it's a gaming console in disguise.
None of suggested solutions to a problem that never existed before immutable distros became a thing, unfortunately, don't help with global modifications.
Real computer is a tool first. Immutable distros turn it into a toy.
Which again isn't a bad thing... maybe if you can sacrifice one piece of hardware and rely on another as a tool.@a1ba @drq
> None of suggested solutions to a problem that never existed before immutable distros became a thing, unfortunately, don't help with global modifications.
I don't think I understand what exactly are you talking about in this part. Which makes me unable to argue.
> Real computer is a tool first. Immutable distros turn it into a toy.
I don't think I agree exactly, at least in my usecase. For me it's specifically that I make changes in my free time, when I can afford for it to be a toy, but then I can rollback to the working version to work.
If I need some software I can't install, I usually fallback to easiest solution that works, worst case of which was a VM (but that was 1C:enterprise, so really worst of worst cases), but usually it's distrobox, brew or flatpak, and since recently temporary overlayfs. -
@a1ba @drq
> None of suggested solutions to a problem that never existed before immutable distros became a thing, unfortunately, don't help with global modifications.
I don't think I understand what exactly are you talking about in this part. Which makes me unable to argue.
> Real computer is a tool first. Immutable distros turn it into a toy.
I don't think I agree exactly, at least in my usecase. For me it's specifically that I make changes in my free time, when I can afford for it to be a toy, but then I can rollback to the working version to work.
If I need some software I can't install, I usually fallback to easiest solution that works, worst case of which was a VM (but that was 1C:enterprise, so really worst of worst cases), but usually it's distrobox, brew or flatpak, and since recently temporary overlayfs.@tiredbun @drq >I don't think I understand what exactly are you talking about in this part. Which makes me unable to argue.
Installing software on immutable distros: flatpak, nix, homebrew and even overlayfs. There is always gonna be some tradeoffs, would it be container limitations, performance issues or something else that I don't know about yet.
>For me it's specifically that I make changes in my free time, when I can afford for it to be a toy, but then I can rollback to the working version to work.
To me tool can be a toy, but a toy cannot become a tool. That's what I mean. I just don't get what's the point in making problems for yourself. -
@tiredbun @drq >I don't think I understand what exactly are you talking about in this part. Which makes me unable to argue.
Installing software on immutable distros: flatpak, nix, homebrew and even overlayfs. There is always gonna be some tradeoffs, would it be container limitations, performance issues or something else that I don't know about yet.
>For me it's specifically that I make changes in my free time, when I can afford for it to be a toy, but then I can rollback to the working version to work.
To me tool can be a toy, but a toy cannot become a tool. That's what I mean. I just don't get what's the point in making problems for yourself.@a1ba @drq
Installing packages the traditional linux distro way also has it's own tradeoffs, like you can't really install several versions at once, any package has capability to break your system on installation or update (maybe not any, but there are barely any distinction between them), and it's hard to keep track of packages you installed especially if you build stuff from source and get a lot of dependencies you didn't clear right away.
For me, every time I use a "normal" distro, it slowly becomes a mess of forgotten development packages, hacks and config changes I didn't keep track of, and I am usually pretty afraid of stuff breaking so I cannot experiment and reconfigure stuff because I will need the same device as a tool next day.
And immutable distros by definition keep your system clean, every change is in some way trackable and revertable... Apart from /etc, user files and other stuff, but etc is not that big of a deal, and everything else can be deleted in bulk without risking making system unusable, which is the point. -
@a1ba @drq
Installing packages the traditional linux distro way also has it's own tradeoffs, like you can't really install several versions at once, any package has capability to break your system on installation or update (maybe not any, but there are barely any distinction between them), and it's hard to keep track of packages you installed especially if you build stuff from source and get a lot of dependencies you didn't clear right away.
For me, every time I use a "normal" distro, it slowly becomes a mess of forgotten development packages, hacks and config changes I didn't keep track of, and I am usually pretty afraid of stuff breaking so I cannot experiment and reconfigure stuff because I will need the same device as a tool next day.
And immutable distros by definition keep your system clean, every change is in some way trackable and revertable... Apart from /etc, user files and other stuff, but etc is not that big of a deal, and everything else can be deleted in bulk without risking making system unusable, which is the point.@tiredbun @drq I understand your point here as two days ago I upgraded the system on my old laptop that hasn't been touched since 2020.
And I had to remove a lot of packages that I don't need, some of them were actually unused old dependencies, that somehow got marked as installed by user and therefore didn't clean up automatically.
But still such normal distro lets me do everything I want at any time, so that machine got converted into something else, with the same operating system.
>a lot of people don't have those issues with managing their software or are okay with reinstalling OS every once in a while
Does that imply you somehow killed your system installation? O_o -
@tiredbun @drq I understand your point here as two days ago I upgraded the system on my old laptop that hasn't been touched since 2020.
And I had to remove a lot of packages that I don't need, some of them were actually unused old dependencies, that somehow got marked as installed by user and therefore didn't clean up automatically.
But still such normal distro lets me do everything I want at any time, so that machine got converted into something else, with the same operating system.
>a lot of people don't have those issues with managing their software or are okay with reinstalling OS every once in a while
Does that imply you somehow killed your system installation? O_o@a1ba @drq
> Does that imply you somehow killed your system installation? O_o
I meant reinstalling to get a cleaner system. The "windows slow, reinstall windows" school of admin work.
But I am paranoid about breaking my installation too, I did some fuckups when I first tried Linux Mint, and I did some desktop-level (not unbootable, but breaking a DE/WM setup) fuckups while on immutable distros. Having rollbacks and declaratively managed system (either NixOS or Fedora Atomic custom images) in addition to regular /home backups helps me a lot to make changes and experiment without risking wasting too much time on fixing stuff. -
@a1ba @drq
> Does that imply you somehow killed your system installation? O_o
I meant reinstalling to get a cleaner system. The "windows slow, reinstall windows" school of admin work.
But I am paranoid about breaking my installation too, I did some fuckups when I first tried Linux Mint, and I did some desktop-level (not unbootable, but breaking a DE/WM setup) fuckups while on immutable distros. Having rollbacks and declaratively managed system (either NixOS or Fedora Atomic custom images) in addition to regular /home backups helps me a lot to make changes and experiment without risking wasting too much time on fixing stuff. -
@drq ok but to me it's a terrible idea.
I tried to use steamdeck as a PC with it's original OS and it's not good if you want to use some exotic software or use it for development, for multiple reasons:
1. Remounting rootfs as rw means your changes will not persist until next update. (well, duh!) In my case it was worse, by default rootfs on steamos isn't that big, so it's very easy to run out of free space.
2. If you use flatpak, the software you're looking might either be not packaged or be useless in a container. Pretty much the same if you plan to use any other container like docker.
3. Nix.... is Nix. Nuff said.
4. gentoo prefix/pkgsrc/homebrew are fine if you know what to expect with them, like pkgsrc and gentoo would force you building software from source code, not sure about homebrew, I have a suspicion that prebuilt packages only exist for Mac.
All in all, I wouldn't say that immutable distros are bad but depending on how you use your computer experience might be rough.@a1ba @drq i think, we need not completely immutable distros, but distros with big "immutable" packages. So you will manage not thousands packages, but only base system, optional DE packages like gnome/kde/x11, driver packages and several development kit pacjages. Windows and OSX are using semi-immutable base and everyone OK using it.
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@a1ba @drq i think, we need not completely immutable distros, but distros with big "immutable" packages. So you will manage not thousands packages, but only base system, optional DE packages like gnome/kde/x11, driver packages and several development kit pacjages. Windows and OSX are using semi-immutable base and everyone OK using it.
