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I'm curious how many of you are using immutable distros, or giving same to relatives? If so which? Particularly for desktop/mobile/tablet use. NixOS, Silverblue and Bazzite seems to be the largest distros that take an approach like this for desktops at least, but the terms seem loosely used, and confused. Based on analogy. Atomic distros should have all or nothing updates. So all the updates are large singular updates. Immutable distros should have the root file system mounted read-only. For obvious reasons many immutable distros also want atomic updates. Some of the immutable distros also using containerised applications. I can see why people think these will be successful, with simpler usability and better security (if done right) but they seem to be playing second fiddle currently. I can absolutely see the benefits, but I'm minded they also cross some of the traditional wisdom and usage in the Linux space. So I assume they are harder to fiddle with (matters to hobbyist and devs), harder to develop on, and by breaking the traditional packaging approaches split the packaging effort that some of them rely on, from the users. Also extensive use of non-traditional packages will result in slower performance and more memory use, but perhaps we are prepared to sacrifice that in 2025 given the price of memory versus the maintenance and security benefits. Also if you look at them with an attackers hat on, does it actually achieve more security in practice? Are writable file systems protected from execution or suid execution? Do the containerised applications only have restricted access to your personal files (e.g. can your browser still access your email files, or your SSH keys?). If I was interested in moving from Debian, or other tradition Linux distro, would you recommend the distro you are using? Also Debian Trixie crashes if I use Wayland or GNOME on my ancient hardware, so I had to poke it to be KDE on X11, does your chosen distro have enough flexibility to even run on my hardware without crashing I wonder. What else would you tell me before I switched? -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG FAQ: https://www.dcglug.org.uk/faq/