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Comparison between NixOS vs blendOS vs Vanilla OS: what to pick and why? (self.linux)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by tanja to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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So I've recently taken an interest in these three distros:

All of these offer something very interesting:
Access to (basically) all Linux-capable software, no matter from what repo.

Both NixOS and blendOS are based on config files, from which your system is basically derived from, and Vanilla OS uses a package manager apx to install from any given repo, regardless of distribution.

While I've looked into Fedora Silverblue, that distro is limited to only install Flatpaks (edit: no, not really), which is fine for "apps", but seems to be more of a problem with managing system- and CLI tools.

I haven't distro hopped yet, as I'm still on Manjaro GNOME on my devices.

What are your thoughts on the three distros mentioned above?
Which ones are the most interesting, and for what reasons?

Personally, I'm mostly interested in NixOS & blendOS, as I believe they may have more advantages compared to Arch;

What do you think?

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[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 7 points 1 year ago

You look at defaults and think this is linux.

Look again at Fedora Silverblue /any other desktop variant. VanillaOSses apx is just a wrapper around distrobox, which is preinstalled on ublue even.

Apx installs apps on containers just as it is possible on Fedora Atomic (the general name for all immutable desktops). You can also layer and remove apps to or from the base OS which is sometimes needed or nice for speed.

On Fedora Atomic you have

  • flatpak
  • podman containers (toolbx, distrobox: like apx on VanillaOS but without the great tooling and GUI management, yet)
  • rootful containers for stuff interacting with systemd, needing USB access etc.
  • layering or removing packages / changing the OS to something like ublue to let other people do the work, especially for NVIDIA drivers
[-] tanja 2 points 1 year ago

You look at defaults and think this is linux.

What do you mean by that?

On the Fedora Atomic website, they write:

Project Atomic is now sunset

The Atomic Host platform is now replaced by CoreOS. Users of Atomic Host are encouraged to join the CoreOS community

Do you think CoreOS is a good fit for a desktop?
I always thought it's more of a server distro.

On a related note: Would you recommend Fedora Silverblue?

[-] Pantherina@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

Oh no. The rebrand is not done. There is no Atomic site yet, Atomic= Fedora Desktop with OSTree (Silverblue, Kinoite, Sericea, ...)

If you like GNOME, yes I recommend Silverblue a lot.

Fedora has a very different system of the core distro. But with defaults I mean that they dont have apx by default but the same underneath.

You could use a bash function for DNF for example, but in general it is

distrobox-create Fedora39
distrobox enter Fedora39
sudo dnf install PACKAGE
distrobox-export --app PACKAGE

for GUI packages

this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
87 points (100.0% liked)

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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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