I recently took up Bazzite from mint and I love it! After using it for a few days I found out it was an immutable distro, after looking into what that is I thought it was a great idea. I love the idea of getting a fresh image for every update, I think for businesses/ less tech savvy people it adds another layer of protection from self harm because you can’t mess with the root without extra steps.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with immutable distros I attached a picture of mutable vs immutable, I don’t want to describe it because I am still learning.

My question is: what does the community think of it?

Do the downsides outweigh the benefits or vice versa?

Could this help Linux reach more mainstream audiences?

Any other input would be appreciated!

  • urata@lemmy.world
    6·
    2 days ago

    I’m not really sure how the upsides of immutable distros work. I’ve been using linux for a long time and I’m not an expert but I’ve learned bits of things here and there.

    I recently bought a steamdeck and it’s running an immutable distro. I don’t really know how to use software that’s installed via flatpak because it’s weird.

    I have a game installed that runs badly (unplayable for me) through proton. I can launch it through q4wine if I switch the steamdeck into “desktop mode” and it runs much better.

    If it wasn’t an immutable distro I could pretty easily make a shell script that launches the game through wine. Then I could add that shell script as a non steam game and it would (I think) run well, and I’d be able to launch it from the non desktop side of steam OS that is a lot more streamlined.

    There is something comforting to me about immutable distros though.

    I feel like I don’t remember half the shit I have installed on my computers. If I wanted to start cutting things out I don’t know where I’d start. But with flatpaks I get the sense I could probably just wipe anything I don’t use out of the flatpak directory and I probably wouldn’t break anything.

    • anguo@lemmy.ca
      7·
      2 days ago

      I’m fairly certain you could still run that shell script on steamOS? I don’t understand why an immutable distro would keep you from doing that. It’s essentially what Lutris and Heroic Games launcher do.