this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Arch is to complicated
proceeds to recommend immutable distros
Image based distros are only complicated if you come from traditional distros, because they're different.
If you come from Windows or another OS, then having "The whole OS is one thing" instead of "A huge collection of packages and directories" makes everything simpler to understand, because you don't mess with anything except /home/. You don't have to care about anything else.
And if you want to do something more fancy, like using a CLI tool, then having to enter a Distrobox container isn't complicated.
For casual use, like gaming, browsing or image editing, everything is just as usual. Nobody, except us Linux nerds, actually cares about the underlying system. Casual users just want the OS to be a tool for their programs they use, and for that, it's ideal, because it just works and doesn't bork itself.
Until something goes wrong or they want to customize the system. It will backfire quickly.
Then you can always rollback in case you don't have a working image.
I had to do that once. On a non-atomic install, this would have meant a completely broken system. In my case, this was one reboot away and it worked again.
And in case you don't like the direction of your image project going, you can also always rebase to another one in less than 5 minutes, download time and reboot included.
uBlue for example starts with a very basic Fedora Silverblue image, which you can fork easily yourself. I have zero experience in coding or other stuff, and even I managed to get my own custom image working.
There are already a couple of people around who started with Aurora, Secureblue or Bazzite, but then found them too opinionated, and went back to Vanilla Kinoite for example.
It's extremely simple to switch out the base OS to something almost completely different.
And, you don't loose any customisability. You can still do everything you want, take a look at Bazzite or Secureblue. Completely different kernel, additional modifications and packages, and much much more. Feels completely different than Vanilla Kinoite for example.
What does this mean?
To be fair, the best standard would be to send off new users to immutable distros
Maybe sometime in the future. However, not today. It is still complex and requires some knowledge of how file systems work
True if they are somewhat technical to search for solutions on their own. If they just use web browser then there is bothing to worry about
They will find answers that won't work as the core system hasn't changed much over the last 20 years.