Linux

Immutable, doesn't mean extreme secure. It's a false sense of security.
It could be more secure.
But during a runtime, it is possible to overwrite operational memory, mask some syscalls, etc.

That's my 3 cents.

I have investigated the idea and came to the conclusion that immutable distros are essentially a research project. They attempt to advance the state-of-art a slight bit but the cost is currently too great.

Perhaps somebody will some day create something that's worth switching to. But I don't think that has happened yet, or is happening with any of the current distros. Silverblue might become that with enough polish, but I feel that to get that amount of polish, they would have to make Silverblue the 1st class citizen, i.e. the default install of Fedora.

It's definitely great for the mainstream. Think of Linus Sebastian who has somehow broken every OS except for SteamOS.

It's not great for me who uses Arch Linux btw with the expectation that if the system doesn't break on its own, then I will break it myself.

I personally vastly prefer mutable distros for my own system, but I understand the appeal for those who like them. As long as mutable distros remain an option I don't mind immutable distros.

NixOS is kinda the best of both worlds, because it does everything in a way that is compatible with an immutable fs, but it doesn’t force you into abiding by immutability yourself.

You can always opt into immutability by using Impermanence, but I’ve never seen any reason to.

Edit: That said, the syntax has a steep learning curve and there are tons of annoying edge cases that spawn out of the measures it takes to properly isolate things. It can be a lot to micromanage, so if you’d rather just use your system more than tinker with it, it may not be a good fit.

Immutable ≠ atomic

Bazzite is atomic (not immutable), same with Silverblue and other Fedora variants (they're all atomic, even on their main page it says atomic). It's kinda misleading ngl

Immutable vs Mutable

weird        normal

For my needs, I've build a static system with buildroot for a pi zero. No updates, no modifications on the system, no remote access. Some directories are in tempfs, and after a reboot the system is fresh again. when needed, I removed the sd card and copy a new image

I use this board for a pulseaudio/mpd player, it's not intended for a desktop usage, but I'm happy beiing able to configure a system like this one. For me, there is no maintenance, and this is exactly what I wanted

I love building my own uBlue image. Tinkering is done in toolbox containers, definite changes are baked into the image. Completely custom (to me) and when you get it right it will just work anywhere. If I would brick my PC/storage I can just boot up another and restore my (back-upped) home dir with very little effort.

I think they're great. I've got two Linux newbies running some Ublue variant with no issues

• You can still apply updates live, e.g. on Bazzite (Fedora Atomic) with the --apply-live tag (or however it's spelled).
• The root partition isn't read only per se, but you have to change the upstream image itself instead of the one booted right now. You can use the uBlue-Builder for example to make your own custom Bazzite spin just for you if you want.
• Both aren't inherently secure or insecure. It's harder to brick your system, yeah, for sure, but you can still fuck up some partitions or get malware. It's just better because everything is transparently identifiable (ostree works like git), saved (fallback images), containerised and reproducible.
• And you can still install system software, e.g. by layering it via rpm-ostree. Or use rootful containers in Distrobox and keep using apt or Pacman in there.