i don't see threads about read only operating systems. they have been a thing for quite a while and really they seem like the most normie friendly operating system, maybe in the future they will be even more viable as more and more of our computing gets done in the browser. thoughts?
got no clue bro
Normal people only try to reconfigure their system because it is broken or shit or there is a feature they need for something. The first two cases would be solved by simply making an OS that is actually good, and in the third case people are just gonna not be able to do stuff they need or want to do. I don't really see what is interesting about this idea unless you work in IT.
its about installing software. that is how most people get malware, thing of how windows users install software.
you know i suspect in the future, most pieces of software will be basically web apps. just like on your phone. there will be little need to actually install software for the average consumer, most of everything will be done inside the browser
an immutable operating system would not only prevent basically all malware but it would also help streamline the user experience and make sure that nothing breaks.
yeah I follow and I don't disagree that it is likely what the future of personal computing looks like, I just can't really see much to say about it beside that it's extremely depressing and doesn't benefit anybody except companies and boomers.
its not extremely depressing and it benefits the majority of people using computers. the people who like tinkering with their computers like you and me are a niche of computer users, and there will always exist a market for this type of stuff because we make up a significant enough part of computer users. shit like arch linux, gentoo etc will always be a thing and exist for us tinkerers
i hate to be the schizo but... you will own nothing and you will be happy. meanwhile big corp .inc owns you
good idea on paper, unfortunately im afraid of using anything that isn't ubuntu because the more rare your os is the more likely chance things dont work.
If you install silverblue you can pull the universal blue images which have nvidia and distrobox pre-installed. Thanks to distrobox being hooked into your home you can install and run any application from any distro (bazzite preinstalls an arch container with steam inside) and these applications can be treated like they were installed in the host (you call code-oss despite it being installed only inside the container and it also gets a desktop launcher).
Also updating. Updates literally just happen. You will never notice updates happening since the system pulls them in the background and we'll that's it. Reboot and you're instantly up to date. And it won't conflict with the running system since the running system is a separate unique image.
Silverblue is at least 20 years ahead of every os in existence in terms of convenience.
>reboot
>to update
Lol.
How do you install a new kernel without rebooting elaborate? Even worse if you install a new kernel you need to install appropriate drivers and until you reboot the system will run half half meaning you'll get driver mismatches (quite common with gpu drivers since they can't just be reloaded on the fly). Ie until you reboot some parts of your system are unusable. Or you won't update.
With silverblue the update just happens. Nobody forces you to do anything ever. You can reboot if you want and with no delay you're in the new system. Or you continue using the old image.
https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/linux/what-is-linux-kernel-live-patching
Try that. It will live patch your kernel yes. The gpu driver (and other more annoying to reload drivers) will be mismatched instantly.
Also tell me a reason why to use this hard method you have to setup yourself, manually attend to the updates, wait for them to download and execute instead of just letting it magically happen?
It's funny because you posted a Redhat concept even. And they are specifically depreciating that for silverblue. But hey Mr. Jobless i3 Brave I understand some people are poor and love to waste their time with a janitors work.
>posts a redhat link about kernel patching
>in response to a guy recommending silverblue
You Sir might be the funniest and dumbest person today on LULZ
Do you use rhel the commercial propriatery out of date fedora as your desktop?
I tried silverblue. Coming from arch and after some time always pacman fucks something up whether xorg or pipewire or whatever. Im still split on you not even being able to edit the filesystem if you want. As for what said the distrobox thing seems really cool. Might look into it again. If you can use the aur in silverblue there's basically no need to use any other distro ever again afaik.
Linux devs not cherry-picking the worst ideas from Android challenge(impossible).
Can someone explain to me what an immutable OS is?
The filesystem (except your home folder) is immutable. You're not supposed to install applications into the root and clutter your system and potentially break it or make it unstable. Because systems are immutable updates cannot break things either.
You install applications either through flatpak or inside containers. Distrobox is appearently preinstalled on ublue so you can install software inside the archlinux container from the aur and it will behave as if it's installed locally (even though it's installed barely inside a container yet it has gpu support etc.)
>Distrobox is appearently preinstalled on ublue so you can install software inside the archlinux container from the aur and it will behave as if it's installed locally (even though it's installed barely inside a container yet it has gpu support etc.)
Is this better than flatpak? Flatpak apps take longer to start and don't respect my global themes
Keep system and home partitions separate and just re-image system for updates. Same thing immutable OSes do.
>Is this better than flatpak?
Flatpak is for "normal" gui applications. Distrobox is for stuff like ides and Cuda etc. Obviously you can use whatever you want. Generally though should use flatapk for applications that don't need massive host integration and/or sudo while using distrobox for stuff that does need it. Flatpak is safer. Distrobox is more powerful.
>Flatpak apps take longer to start
The first time GTK flatpak applications can be slower yes. After that it's an issue with your system.
>don't respect my global themes
Because they are sandboxed and don't have read access to your home folder. Only use Gnome default theme and the dark mode toggle and it just works. Or let them read your gtk folder and theme folder and have annoyances.
rm -rm .config/gtk* .themes .local/share/themes
>The first time
Yes, exactly. First time takes so much time but then it's ok.
I let all apps read my home folder to fix themes and fonts lol.
And yes appearently updates somehow magically just happen. You don't need to update manually you won't even notice an update happening they literally "are just there"
IMO, immutable OSes are a solution in search of a problem. Just don't give users admin/root access, serves the exact same purpose.
>Just don't give users admin/root access, serves the exact same purpose.
No it doesn’t. Read up what an immutable OS is retard.
Even if you disable root on a normal distro you need sudo to be able to do things. If you're gonna use flatpak or install applications exclusively inside a container at that point you're just using bootleg silverblue without certain features (like the magic updates or rpm-ostree being able to change the entire system in 1 minute while keeping a backup of the old image).
>don't give users sudo/root access
Ok how do you install anything? How do you update?
Same shit I've been doing for decades on locked down university computers: install shit in userspace. Hell, some Windows applications *default* to installing in %AppData%, like Discord or Telegram Desktop.
So you install applications the same was as in silverblue. But don't want to use silverblue because .... it has features making your life easier. Right you're one of the guys liking doing the janitor works aren't you?
>some Windows applications *default* to installing in %AppData%
Yes because it's easier than asking for an uac dialog. It's windows. Not Linux. It's expected to be used by the dumbest of apes (ie you).
What are you talking about? Containers do work on the kernel level. Flatpaks use the exact same technology as containers. Look into some technical manuals. You probably just read some g buzzword from people who like to do janitor work.
>Flatpaks use the exact same technology as containers
Flatpaks are user-space. Containerization of apps should be a function of the kernel. The kernel separates apps dependencies, doesn't allow them to access files they don't own, doesn't let them access other processes without permissions. Flatpaks are a retarded bloated cope that mimicks Ubuntu structure and runs in user-space.
>Flatpaks are user-space.
Just like containers. It's called user namespaces. If that's the average modern g user I can see why people are using distros like arch.
Ok, fine. If this is what a container is, sure, be it. It doesn't make it the right choice to run some bitch ass app.
>Just run a whole container to make your app run, bro
>Just run a whole container
So you don't even know how containers work. And het you cry? How surprising. Containers have literally 0 overhead in performance (except if you're on a 1998 cpu).
That's if you ignore the startup time. Starting flatpak discord takes like a whole minute till it appears and starts loading
>That's if you ignore the startup time.
The first time you boot the container is shutdown. Booting it takes 1 to two seconds. After that it's just running. Running applications inside the container or on your host has literally no speed difference. Again that's why people use docker for AI.
>Starting flatpak discord takes like a whole minute till it appears and starts loading
The first time some applications using GTK inside flatpak are started (and electron uses gtk) they regenerate the font cache. I don't know why and I don't care since I don't use applications that have this issue. This has nothing to do with the container this is caused by flatpak.
>I don't know why
Because user-space containers to run GUI apps is a retarded idea.
>Because user-space containers to run GUI apps is a retarded idea.
And again it's not caused by containers but by flatpak. But sure. I think we know what kind of human you are if all you can find is a delay in the startup time of discord out of all applications (one of the few that is just a webpage shown in chrome)
Literally all flatpaks I've used are so slow to start.
Firefox, Thunderbird, Element, Bottles.
What kind of flatpaks do you use? Lmfao
>It's not caused by containers but by flatpaks
Are you saying I should switch to snaps or something? Is there a good alternative for flatpaks or you're just going on some autistic crusade to defend muh containers without giving any practical solutions?
Even goddamn wine cli is slow as a flatpak, and it probably isn't related to building the font cache as you were coping before.
I use Steam and lutris as flatpak. It runs the exact same speed as inside the distrobox container and as when I used arch.
> basedpack
ewwww, can you even reproduce
install nix
S0i you nagger moot.
I use Firefox Chrome and steam Flatpak. I did not notice any performance difference to the ones installed on my native arch nor to the container.
Bottles and Thunderbird I don't use no clue. Element is Electron so makes sense.
>Are you saying I should switch to snaps or something?
I don't use snaps (and won't since silverblue comes with flatpak).
>Is there a good alternative for flatpaks or
If you're the guy who said he uses custom themes there might be your issue. Thar and fonts/icons. I use vanilla silverblue gnome fonts icons theme. If not running the application inside a distrobox container physically cannot have any speed difference than to running them natively. If it does your system/hardware has an issue.
>the arch tranny uses discord
Shock horror and surprise so unexpected
Container do not have any overhead. Not a single bit. It's why people do all the AI stuff using dockers. The ublue gaming image installs steam and lutris by default inside the arch container.
>If this is what a container is
>doesn't know what a container is
>argues about a system which is based entirely on container technology
Ngl that's genius. The major weakness of user namespaces is root exploits. Since root is non existent it mitigates this entirely.
>
(You)
>So you install applications the same was as in silverblue. But don't want to use silverblue because .... it has features making your life easier. Right you're one of the guys liking doing the janitor works aren't you?
I don't need some zoomer-reinvented-the-wheel distro to do that already and I have full control over everything.
If you use an immutable OS for your own private computer, you're cucking yourself. Immutable is for public-facing stuff. And kiosks have existed for decades already. This is a solved problem.
>you're cucking yourself
>by letting the system do the janitor work for me
I can install anything from any distro I want. I can cleanup whatever I installed entirely by doing distrobox rm archlinux. Meanwhile my OS takes care of updates magically without me even noticing. Yet I can still install rpms if I want (I have not since I install everything inside my arch container).
Even better thanks to ublue I can try different DEs/WMs/Configs on the fly by just pulling them with one command. If I like them I stick with them. If I don't I go back to my original system with one more command.
Tell me who is the cucked one Mr. I love doing janitor work.
>Tell me who is the cucked one Mr. I love doing janitor work.
> water leaks from behind a closed door
> janitor just unlocks the door and fixes the leak
> immutable cuck has to replace the entire building with a new version that might or might not have a fixed pipe because there's no lock on the door
sounds retarded, ngl
>water leaks from behind a closed door
That is the point. This physically cannot happen. And lets assume for the sake of you cuck it happens. Everytime you change your system Silverblue creates a new grub entry. If it would happen you just pick the old grub entry and you're done. Whats faster calling someone to fix something (and remember your update takes time and forces you to reboot after kernel updates while silverblue applies it magically and you wont notice kernel updates) or having a worker create a copy of your house in 1 second and then letting you choose to revert if you want?
And before you ask. The "copy" of your house is just a container image. So no it's not 59 gigabyte. It's couple hundred megs. And it's also automatically generated when updating.
https://universal-blue.org/
But why would I read if I can just scream like a kid how much I love doing janitor work
>But why would I read if I can just scream like a kid how much I love doing janitor work
Look, I get that the immutable approach has some convenience features over the traditional way, but if you use that stuff on your own private computer, you deserve to be locked out of it once the inevitable happens and things become more authoritarian.
You do you, but stop shilling this user-hostile crap to normal people.
>Look, I get that the immutable approach has some convenience features over the traditional way,
We have established there is no advantage of traditional distros over silverblue. I can do whatever you can do thanks to distrobox with the difference that I get free backups free and magically applied updates and no root mitigating a lot of real security exploits (running containers on normal distros like arch or even fedora is terribly insecure which is why arch had them disabled for years).
>but if you use that stuff on your own private computer, you deserve to be locked out of it once the inevitable happens and things become more authoritarian.
So the open source system that's the most secure OS available right now locks me out. But the arch distro you are using with trillion pgp keys from random people won't.
>stop shilling
Nobody shilled. Op asked. People (like you) cried around like kids screaming what they think how it works and I corrected them.
>user-hostile
Yes i agree. Letting your OS do the janitor work for you while giving you access to every distros software repo in existence is very user hostile.
>normal people
To people who don't know what containers are? Sure. You 3 iq janitor should keep wasting time while my OS does it for me infinitely better.
I think you don't know how silverblue is supposed to work. As others pointed out you can just install software inside containers and it gets integrated with the host. It's just that it's inside a container meaning it physically cannot harm your OS and by removing the container every single file related to that application is gone aswell.
Ofc flatpak also works. And appearently nix does too.
Shouldn't containers work on the kernel level? Flatpaks are retarded because it's not at the kernel level.
>don't tell this guy that flatpaks are literally using the exact same technology as containers
Immutability provides a lot of benefit but for a normie friendly setup would introduce a lot of bloat.
I'm skeptical
They offer zero practical advantages and only appeal to functionalfags because of their obsession with purity, and WEF members because they can be used to limit user freedom.
>muh malware
Almost no malware acts by directly modifying OS files, modifying configs and user files in malicious ways is far easier, more robust, and harder to detect.
Especially dangerous malware will just flash itself on your hardware for persistency, you're not solving anything.
>muh updates
Updates in any mainstream OS are a mess because you're changing a system with tons of moving parts, and that demands a shitload of QA to actually check if anything broke instead of simply trusting the docs.
Immutable OS files don't change any of that.
>Immutable OS files don't change any of that.
Yes. Yes they do. That is a major selling point. If you update your system looks bit for bit identical as the developer intended. Every single of these "moving parts" will look as the developer intended. Whatever you have installed inside your containers and flatpaks doesn't affect system stability (and before you cry around you can automagically update them aswell).
>being this retarded
Whoops, the files on the disk are bit by bit identical but the files you're actually accessing are different because the user's GPU is a different brand than yours, and you hit some branch your "developer intent" didn't consider.
>inb4 gpu drivers installed via flatpak
Again wrong.
There are two types of images. One nvidia and one non Nvidia. Whatever you install it will look as the developers intended. The one thing that this entails is that ancient hardware is unsupported. I don't care about that though. Or are you using a gpu that's by someone else than intel amd or nvidia?
Typical summer kid of g. Just saying what they think without even knowing how it works.
https://universal-blue.org/
>the files you're actually accessing are different
>the files on the disk are bit by bit identical
The files are different but also identical at the same time? Schrodingers files? You aren't trying to imply the OS patches a file in memory with a gpu driver?
>reading file A or file B depending on the case = Shrodingers files
Least retarded functionalfag
file A or file B depending on the case =
Now look at how silverblue works. It does not include files that "could be used". Every file that is included is mandatory for the system. The only exception are kernel drivers that ship due to the kernel containing them (ie every other kernel on every other distro has them too).
>reading file A or file B depending in the case
Are you implying they patched the kernel to introduce some "if user has nvidia do this if user has amd do that"? Are you trolling?
>you're changing a system with tons of moving parts, and that demands a shitload of QA to actually check
And that is exactly the reason why silverblue itself is the most minimal of Gnome possible. Literally every single application outside of nautilus and settings comes as a flatpak. And I think even these are like 2 or 3 by default only.
>Especially dangerous malware will just flash itself on your hardware for persistency, you're not solving anything.
>without root
>my new meme security tech will surely be 100% error-free
>just ship one image for every popular driver combination
>just hope more proprietary drivers don't pop up
>just cram 9001 redundant drivers into every image
>>my new meme security tech will surely be 100% error-free
No root user is created. At all. How can malware flash itself without root.
>just ship one image for every popular driver combination
>just hope more proprietary drivers don't pop up
>just cram 9001 redundant drivers into every image
It installs the Linux kernel (which as you evidently dont know includes billions drivers including on arch and any other distro including for amd and intel gpus). And if you pick the nvidia one it includes the nvidia driver. That's it. One driver if you pick it.
Summer of g is getting worse every single year.
When I tried them a year or so ago they were all pretty shit. Try installing something outside of the repos/flatshit and it's hit or miss whether it will work. Probably ok if you want to slap something on your grandmother's craptop and not worry about her fucking it up but for anyone who is using their pc for more than web-browsing they are complete garbage and offer nothing over traditional distros.
>what is distrobox
I think they're ideal for computers in places like offices, schools, libraries, kiosks and other public places where you need a good safeguard against people (whether inadvertently or intentionally) tampering with the system.
i don't see the value of it for personal computing
it's good for remote workstations but honestly workstations as a whole are on the way out
there isn't much reason not to use a webapp to handle client interaction
>blocks your path
Like the new trend of static linking all packages to eliminate dependencies, this is another half-assed work around to the fact desktop Linux is garbage. Instead of making it so the package manager couldn't destroy your desktop because you didn't have time to to read up on what 600 packages do, they pull this shit.
>Instead of making it so the package manager couldn't destroy your desktop because you didn't have time to to read up on what 600 packages do,
The exact point of ublue is that you don't have to do that.thats why there's gnome kde even like budgie and lxqt or whatever images available. Updates happen in the background you will never notice them.
If you want to swap a de you pull for example the kde image. If you don't like it you go back to your image. If you actually interact with thr package manager in silverblue/ublue apart from like once a year you are doing something wrong.
yes nixos is very based, next question
t. running it on my main pc and basement server.
How can I play star rail on this? Windows vm with gpu passthrough?
I don't really care since I'm not a normie who needs oven mitts to not stab myself with my own fingers.