If you reach this page, you may be interested into this new category of Linux distributions labeled “immutable”.
In this category, one can find by age (oldest → youngest) NixOS, Guix, Endless OS, Fedora Silverblue, OpenSUSE MicroOS, Vanilla OS and many new to come.
I will give examples of immutability implementation, then detail my thoughts about immutability, and why I think this naming can be misleading. I spent a few months running all of those distributions on my main computers (NAS, Gaming, laptop, workstation) to be able to write this text.
I haven’t given any of these a try just yet, but I feel like this is where the Linux desktop is going. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing – I need both more experience as well as read more informed opinions about it – but I do like the concept.
The whole premise rests on flatpacks/snaps/appimage being the means you install everything. The trouble is in actual use many of the flatpack repo are unmaintained and/or just dont function properly. VScode for example is basically unusable in a professional capacity.
Immutable will have its place, especially on things like game consoles. But i think we are still quite a way from that nirvana still.
Also as a bugbear why does the article have ¨in my opinion¨ listed under facts…. if we are talking immutable then really.. facts should be facts!
I believe rpms in Fedora Silverblue aren’t sandboxed.
Interesting, but missing historical context.
The most popular one in use is probably Google Chromium OS, which powers lots of Chromebook / Chromebox devices (and the free “Flex” ones).
That has shared history with Core OS, which later became (with a very long series of transitions) Fedora Silverblue (which they have, but don’t even mention them).
Depending on how we look at it, Steam OS can also be considered in this category. Even though it is based on Arch, seems to fit the (arbitrary) criteria set on this linked article:
(for 2: only base OS itself, not games of course, for 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/zvjc5f/remember_you_can_rollback_to_a_previous_steam_os/)
New category?? My linux distro took on immutability decades ago before it was cool 🙂
Alfman,
I completely forgot you also had experience with this. Though it is nice to see some public recognition of immutable operating systems is now coming up.