I think most users just don't really know much about atomic distros. A lot of people in this thread don't seem to really understand the benefits and mention downsides that don't really exist in most of them. I think eventually (and by that I mean in a VERY long time) atomic distros will become the standard. AerynOS is an upcoming one that seems to have a really amazing blend of it's atomic features without disrupting the user experience people expect from more typical distros. It won't replace Nix for me, but I hope it'll convince a lot of people to try it out.

Let's answer your question with a question: Why should I reimage my whole tailored home setup, have to learn a different method of doing everything on my system, and ultimately slow my workflow for an atomic system? Sure, it's cool, but it's not worth upending everything that I use for. I'm glad it exists, but I don't currently have a need for it.

I use Bazzite on my Steam Deck because I wanted to get LUKS encryption for the hard drive (and otherwise do not wish to manually maintain the computer). I cannot take what is effectively a general purpose PC out and about without encryption. Especially not with the current political climate in my country (USA).

From dealing with SteamOS, I am already familiar enough with how to set up a full dev environment on the immutable distros. So while that is not a challenge for me, it is still a hassle to deal with. I'd rather just directly install my libraries and binaries rather than do workarounds in containers (and then remember the containers).

I think we'll truly be in the immutable desktop distro future when I can do something like install the base distro image AND simply dnf install something (e.g. nvidia-vaapi-driver or gcc) on top without having to layer it with rpm-ostree. That is, my dnf installs should transparently live on top of the base distro, and that way my base system will never break even if something on top of it does. The problem with layering with rpm-ostree is you are running the risk of a future failed upgrade. It would be like if your MacBook said "sorry, you installed a weird XCode library and therefore we cannot upgrade the OS" -- and that should obviously never happen. Restoring my computer to a base state could be as simple as dnf remove * or a GUI option to "Revert to base + keep user files" and that should leave me with a functioning basic system.

Anyway, even though I only use an immutable distro on one device I do see it as the future of Linux desktop computing. I am not up-to-date with the development efforts, but I think we'll eventually reach a day when using and configuring it, even for advanced users, will be no more difficult than traditional distros. Maybe by 2030 that will be the case.

I made my remarks w.r.t. rpm-ostree and the Fedora family of distros because that's what I use. Obviously the other immutable distros have their own versions of these tools and their own versions of solving the problems related to them.

I'm currently testing fedora (upgrading from mint) and since I'm fairly new I don't want to venture into the fairly unknown territory that is Immutable atm.

Plus, I using a VPN, its crucial for my work, and I already see there are some issues with it because it has to be layered and blá bla bla.

Basically I'm just giving Atomic distros one or 2 years more so that the technology matures, software developers start taking it seriously enough to work around them, and for guides to start coming out.

Because it took me a few years to create my perfect Fedora workstation installation.

If one days it becomes bricked, I’d probably switch to an immitable distribution, but I’m sticking with workstation as long as it works.

Also there is no real upside to switching for me.

For me it's too much time investment, I don't want to tinker with my OS. The fact that it's so common to screw up a system that atomic distros are becoming much more popular is a good example, I want an OS that doesn't get screwed up in the first place.

i use arch. I've got it set up and it works really well for me. I'd only switch if I had some feature I needed in atomic that I can't have in arch. (not just a feature atomic has, but a feature I need that atomic has)

Back in the day when embedded devices are running Linux kernel 2.6, the kernel is gzipped and saved to an SPI flash, then extracted to RAM and run from there.

Does that sound immutable enough to you?

The decision on this design wasn't for an immutable system, but just that flash chips were expensive. Immutability was an accidental achievement.

Actually we developers dreamed every day we can directly modify the operating system ad hoc, not needing to go through the compile-flash-boot agonising process just to debug a config file.

You see, my point is, when a system is in good hands, it just does not break. End of story.

Maybe the next time before you guys press Enter after pacman -Syyu (not exclusively saying your distro is bad, Arch pals, sorry), think about the risk and recovery plan. If you are just an end user expecting 100% uptime and rarely contributing (reporting bugs at least), consider switch to a more stable distro (I heard Debian is good), and ask yourself if you want an immutable distro, or do you just want a super stable system.

Atomic/immutable distros are just another tool in the tool box. It is great for systems with a limited use scenario like the SteamDeck or HTPCs. I also love to install immutable distributions on systems where the user (often IT-illiterate) and the administrator are different people.

On my desktop PC I will, for the foreseeable future, use a normal distro (ArchLinux in my case) but i am planing to look into changing my servers to immutable with docker. That could make updates/maintenance easier and reduce the risk for full server compromises

Look, I'm a Slacker. It's not the Slack way.

I haven't tried them, so I cannot judge, but I'm just afraid I'll run into issues when I will have to go off the beaten path. Inevitably I'll have to do something hacky in order to fix some obscure software that the maintainers of the distro didn't think of, and that's currently already a big pain. But in such a strict setting it will be even more difficult. There will be no documentation and probably no guide or questions/answers on any forum either.

I'd be willing to try it for a productivity setup if I needed a reinstall, but not for my main PC because I just rely on too many hacks to get shit working.

An atomic distro is one which is in my understanding, has a basis in libostree, right? I'm familiar with the Fedora/RedHat versions but not any others.

Immutable distributions, for me to are wonderful when they are sparse. I don't want anything on my OS which I don't use at least once on a while.

If I install Fedora (RPM) Workstation to a large extent I can remove programs that I don't want. Whereas SilverBlue (libostree), I'm stuck with whatever the maintainers template (is there a blocking mechanism?).

However, with sparse Fedora-IoT, I can't break it - to a large extent - and it doesn't have anything I don't want.

I always install minimal versions of OSs, from Fedora (Everything iso), to Debian (debootstrap) to ArchLinux to Exherbo to Talos, just keep them cleaner longer. Then I fix them until they break!

I think they're ideal for those starting out in Linux because they are not ready to break; not saying that they're not for others too.

There's enough documentation, at least for Fedora atomic distros, to make your own custom spin.

I'm not switching for any desktop, unless the basic OS is minimal; but have switched for Raspberry Pi OS to Fedora IoT (atomic distro), at least temporarily.

I use Gentoo, and atomic just doesn't seem like a fit for me. That said I could see it being great for people who don't tinker. If I were to get a family member to use linux I might pick an atomic distro.

My current distro uses APK 3 as a package manager and that is already atomic. So I guess my current setup works fine, without any of the other hassles and limitations.

I once installed Bazzite on my PC. I am an sway user/addict. So thought about installing sway on Bazzite.

Below is my journey

Let me try to download and compile it.

Downloaded but it won't compile.

The libraries/dependancies are not installed. Here, try installing the packages via brew.

Nope, some of them are available and some are not on Brew.

Now what do I do? Okay, there is something called distrobox where I can install whatever I want.

Looks like I have to learn distrobox. Wait, sway is not a simple application, it's a full blown window manager. Even if it compiles, will it work?

Most of the people online (Discord) told me the process won't be very pretty.

Do I want to invest another week experimenting with distrobox?

Nope, installed Nobara the next day and I'm happy.

Disclaimer: Bazzite is a fantastic distro and it's powering my RoG Ally. Atomic distros are fantastic for the niche they fill.

Debian just works, it doesn't complain if I forget to update it for a couple years, and I don't feel like reinstalling my os this year

Immuteability is what enabled me to finally switch over full time. I don't think a lot of geeks yet realize how huge they are going to be for wider-spread adoption.