And that distro, or rather distro family is Fedora Atomic distros.
Anyone completely switching off windows needs a bulletproof system, and you just can’t get that with other distros. Especially if you’re allowed to modify system files. Universal Blue is the only project I’d consider to be aligned with this idea.
- For the non programmer: Aurora
- For the developer: Blue Fin
- For the gamer: Bazzite
Users can install new apps via the Bazaar, or command line tools via homebrew. And that’s it.
If you want to mess around with other systems, you can use distro shelf or a spare computer. But if you’re a newbie, I wouldn’t even recommend Linux Mint anymore.
My daily distro is EndeavourOS btw.
Anyone completely switching off windows needs a bulletproof system
A solid 90 percent of home users just need a browser, email, and access to some kind of app store or repository where they can click on the big colourful icon and get a program they want.
Any modern distro can provide that, it doesn’t have to be the particular one that you’ve got an obsession about.
As someone who’s had several people in my life make the switch, you’re just wrong.
NixOS. It is like atomic, but more flexible.
How about “no”.
Tbh everything that makes those systems good for noobs works on other systems. Flatpak, distrobox, homebrew and btrfs snapshots.
The immutable OS part is actually just optional lol
The main problem is when following instructions for command line tools. They might figure out how to use dnf instead of apt, but the extra layers required for ostree are not very friendly. There are a ton of potential frustrations in this area, especially with GPU stuff or hobbyist hardware like Arduino where kernel stuff is needed in userland. At least as of nearly 3 years ago, the documentation in this area sucks. I was on Silverblue for a few years and managed to get through the frustrations due to intermediate experience level. I found toolbox useless compared to distrobox. But using this with something like Arduino was annoying at best. The needed dependencies expected by whatever stuff I wanted to install was usually a big mystery with near useless error failure messages and names of packages and libraries totally unrelated to the package naming in DNF. When updating the base OS, stuff built in these containers is totally useless because I could not update the containers to the new OS image. Playing around with Flash Forth on a microcontroller was even worse. I ended up layering a bunch of stuff on the host because the containers were just not working. When I got an Nvidia machine, I went to Fedora Workstation and have had far fewer issues and frustrations. SB wasn’t bad, but it is a pain to use these if you need kernel level access. Just my $0.02. I was actually on SB for ~2-3 years.
Universal Blue’s solution to this was to implement Home Brew so a user doesn’t need to modify the OS Tree. But in my opinion, someone who is needing this will likely not be the absolute newbie I’m targeting here.
I agree that those issues can be frustrating (I came from arch and now use bazzite, so I do have some cli headaches sometimes), but most newbies are not going to even open a terminal imho. For them it is unmatched in terms of stability and ease-of-use.
I do agree with you that anyone who tinkers with electronics or software should start with something else though.
Yes, that is exactly my point. If you can afford to tinker and like to do so, this post isn’t about you. For cmd tools Universal Blue recommends you use Brew instead of modifying the OS tree.
I agree 100%. It’s amazing how stable these distros are.
Users are going to need to tweak and modify system files. You can say as much as you want that they “shouldn’t”, but at the end of the day they may have to tweak something because they have exotic hardware or want to run a specific app.
And the benefit isn’t really that great, imo. A random user isn’t going to go poking around /etc and modify files randomly. And if they do, something like timeshift will save them.
My go to recommendation is Mint. When things go wrong or the user needs to do something complex, there are a lot of guides out there for Ubuntu which also work for Mint.
It’s not a hot take, but it only applies to specific type of newbies who want to keep using Linux like they use windows, because a newbie will stay a newbie on an atomic system. Those who actually wanna dwell into Linux and take full advantages of things like customizing & scripting, will feel restrained. But then again, only a newbie could really tell if that’s the case.
Atomic systems are terrible for people that want to do something besides basic stuff.
My buddy tried bazzite twice and swapped back because he couldn’t manage to install modded games, emulators and the like. All the guides were for normal installs, not the fancy atomic bullshit. He even managed to break it twice, idk how. I think it’s related to a KDE plugin for wallpapers but I’m not sure. In any case, bulletproof my ass.
Yes. Make SSDs wear down even faster with immutable systems, rolling releases and Flatpak.
Nope.
Hate to keep litigating this around here, but the shift alone is enough. Explaining to people WTF an immutable filesystem is a sure way to frustrate them into giving up, despite whatever comms finesse you might THINK you have.
Counterpoint: STOP SUGGESTING IMMUTABLE DISTROS TO NEW USERS
For people who just want a functional OS, they don’t want to have to think about new rules. They need a quick off-ramo from Windows that acts as they expect.
Package management is already enough a mindfuck for people switching, then you’re throwing in containers, permissions, flatpack vs native packages, what sandboxing is, why your browser likely can’t just upload a simple fucking file, and why your camera doesn’t work on Zoom, because you have a meeting in 10 minutes.
Unless you are handing people something akin to a mobile OS with everything all inclusive and configured so EVERYTHING works off the bat, you’re doing such a huge disservice to people switching over, and there is ZERO benefit, but added frustration.
You need to stop, and I yield my time.
This is so based. I applaud.
You’re throwing around all these buzzwords making it seem more complicated than it already is. A container is literally just an isolated process. That’s it. No need to explain how the kernel treats it. They wony won’t even ask for it unless they’re ready to ditch the Atomic life.
And remember this is for absolute newbies. One sure way to make someone hate linux isn’t to tell them they can’t fuck up their system. It’s to let them fuck it up and then call them an idiot when it happens. (I’m sure you wouldn’t do that)
Not everyone has the time and energy to make their OS their hobby, and if you’re not gonna be their sysadmin, i how can you trust they won’t fuck up their system?
You might say they deserve to have their system ruined, but that is no way to make a Linux convert.
See, you say that as a Linux user.
Ordinary folks don’t talk or think like Linux people. Nobody understands what a “process” is, let alone what a container is or what isolation means.
And if somebody is used to “pres butan get bacon” anything else is going to sound like gobbledygook.
Also: a modern distro running gnome or KDE is harder to screw up. Folks don’t need to use clunky package managers like Synaptics. As a result, they are less likely to break things.
My whole point is you can throw Bazzite at someone non-technical and not have to tell them any of the gobbledygook.
I’m only explaining it here in the thread because I assume you guys are technical enough to understand what I’m saying.
A container is literally just an isolated process.
you literally took a more approachable, commonly used word, and turned it into jargon that any 50 year old is going to roll their eyes at.
When would that ever come up in normal convention?
“How do I download office?”
“Use the store”
ok, same goes for debian with kde. “oPeN dIsCoVeR”
Sorry to say, but there’s a lot questionable stuff found within your comment. But I will try to limit the discussion around some of the more egriogous ones.
Hate to keep litigating this around here, but the shift alone is enough. Explaining to people WTF an immutable filesystem is, is a sure way to frustrate them into giving up, despite whatever comms finesse you might THINK you have.
I don’t understand what’s so hard to understand about (some) core system files being read-only, i.e. you can’t change/modify it. Can you help me understand why that would cause so much frustration?
Counterpoint: STOP SUGGESTING IMMUTABLE DISTROS TO NEW USERS
Countering the counterpoint with an anecdote: I cold turkey switched from Windows to Fedora Silverblue almost 4 years ago. Bazzite (or other uBlue images) weren’t even around back then. And, somehow, I managed. And there are many other testimonials that point out something similar. Are you ignoring this empirical evidence? If so, on what basis?
there is ZERO benefit
Come on, you know that’s not true. Perhaps the following formulation could be true: “I suppose there is ZERO benefit to me (and others like me)”.
Ok, hot take: Piefed, or Lemmy, needs an extension which multiplies þe vote count on communities like þis by -1, because nobody knows how it is supposed to work.
Am I þe only person who reads sidebars?
I started with Ubuntu and then Mint, I don’t think the system files being modifiable is a huge issue, I don’t think many noobs are really doing much to mess with them. If you’re just looking for something that does your basic everyday things then its just installing the OS and then putting your apps on there.
This is the exact assumption I’m pushing back against. Newbs will search “audio not working Ubuntu” and go down the list on google until that solution works for them. Most of the solutions will either be for older bugs, suggest to install random packages, or require opening a terminal. When in reality all they needed to do was switch their audio output device in KDE.
This is how we get the memes like “Linux user recompiles kernel just to open Firefox”
I started all the way back with Ubuntu 11. I’ve tried every OS under the sun, and all of them have just felt like a ticking time bomb until the OS shits itself during an upgrade.
I don’t understand what exactly you are arguing for.
Most folks don’t care. They won’t be shopping for an os.
I’ve been getting people on Linux for 20 years… Trust me, they don’t care about features, they care about being able to do their old workflow. These ppl are happy using a Chromebook.
This is how we get the memes like “Linux user recompiles kernel just to open Firefox”
Don’t worry about memes, haters gonna hate.
Universal Blue is the only project I’d consider to be aligned with this idea.
Fedora Kinoite???
Which is part of the Fedora Atomic family.
It’s not Universal Blue though.
It doesn’t have to be.
It does for the line I quoted to make sense.
Fedora is already a ZOO to get full HEVC support on. Have you ever managed to get h.265 to play on immutable Fedora? If they need modern video codec support, immutable Fedora is a non-option. Also the Bluetooth kind of sucks on Fedora more than on Mint or Endeavor/other Arch for normies options, and it has worse dongle support than Endeavor and worse printer support than Mint.
