this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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Atomic systems or rpm-ostree is an interesting concept and may well be the future of distributing linux, but it has a lot of compromises. It may not be the first place to start when leaving windows.
The problem is all the apps and things you may wish to do with your OS. Flatpak is the preferred method of installing apps as it doesn't interfere with the OS, but that is a compromise that means more overhead for running apps including memory and disk space, and less integration with the host OS than traditional apps.
You can overlay native apps but the more you overlay onto the immutable os, the more complex upgrading gets and the risks of breaking stuff.
I'm not sure I would be starting with an immutable OS when switching away from windows. While it has a lot of theoretical benefits, its a work in progress and with significant compromises at the moment. Your VPN may just be the first of many programmes you find you need to overlay.
I personally would look at a more traditional install, get it working how you like and if you find Linux works as a permanent home then think about how you might recreate that with an immutable OS base. If your needs a re very simple then maybe it'll be easy, but if you're using lots of software and tools (particularly if its not available Flatpak) or custom OS config you may find atomic desktops are not yet quite ready for you.
It could be frustrating and off putting if you try linux immutable, find loads of problems and attribute that to linux when its actually the immutable OS that's the cause.
I currently run Bazzite full time on an HTPC laptop, but I don't use that for work purposes at all. It's been great, and I would be a little sad if I couldn't fit Bazzite into my use case.
But I'm fully aware that my frustrations are atomic problems, and I've had no issues installing the software I need on non-atomic distros. The reason I'm so smitten by atomic distros is the fact that there's theoretically no down time. I've had distros break in the past due to some squirrely install or update, and I've never once had that issue on Bazzite.
I just recently learned that openSUSE users also have a lot of stability due to btrfs snapshots, so maybe that's really the feature I'm looking for. I don't know much about it, honestly.
As someone who switched from Windows to Kinoite about 6 months ago (and now using bluebuild to create custom images), wether to use an atomic distro or not comes down to how much time do you want to spend learning everything.
I’m a very technical person with years of experience, and I’m still figuring a lot out. You’r not only learning about the ins and outs of linux, but now your adding more complexity with an atomic distro, and even more if you decided to create your own image.
Atomic distros are very much a work in progress and they do have issues you won’t find in non-atomic distros. Creating your image allows you to get around some issues you may run into that layering alone can’t do.
Also, keep in mind that version upgrades (which happen every 6 months or so on Fedora based atomic distros like Bazzite), can and do sometimes break apps baked into your image until they are updated (which also happens in non-atomic distros). Flatpaks can help avoid this breakage.
There are other distros that are gaming focused if atomic distros are not for you.
And this is kind of how I'm starting to look at it, after reading all of these comments. There definitely feels like there's a disconnect between services like Podman and atomic ideology born out of the fact that they were created with different goals in mind. If the two can be married a bit better, the learning curve can be flattened (and I think that's a distinct future possibility, since Podman and Fedora Atomics have Red Hat backing).
Regarding breaks, being able to
rollbackis very handy, and I've used it many times when I was running Bazzite on my Steam Deck. Regressions happen, and I've experienced problematic regressions on non-atomic distros where my only option was to reinstall. This will be my daily driver that needs near full uptime, so whatever I pick, it's gotta be solid without entirely sacrificing relative newness (i.e. not Debian).Either way, there's more to consider than I initially thought, and I appreciate your input.