Linux

I am a big fan of breaking my system

what does the community think of it?

It's important to note how the Linux community interacts with change. In the past, whenever a change has been significant enough to influence individual workflows, it often provoked strong reactions. This was evident when systemd was introduced and adopted by distros like Arch and Debian. Even though systemd was arguably superior in essential aspects for most users, it failed to meet the needs of at least a vocal minority. Consequently, community endeavors were set up to enable the use of Debian or Arch without systemd.

Similarly, the introduction of immutable distributions seems to upset some people, though (at least to me) it's unjustified. Immutable distributions don't necessarily alter the traditional model. For instance, the existence of Fedora Silverblue doesn't impose changes on traditional Fedora; let alone Arch or Debian.

But, overall, most Linux users aren't bothered by it. Though, they often don't see a use for themselves. Personally, I attribute this at least in part to existing misconceptions and misinformation on the subject matter. Though, still, a minority^[1]^ (at best ~10%) actually prefers and uses 'immutable' distros.

Do the downsides outweigh the benefits or vice versa?

Depends entirely on what you want out of your system. For me, they absolutely do. But it's important to note that the most important thing they impose on the user is the paradigm shift that comes with going 'immutable'. And this is actually what traditional Linux users are most bothered by. But if you're unfamiliar with Linux conventions, then you probably won't even notice.

As a side note, it's perhaps important to note that the similarities between traditional distros are greater than the similarities between immutable distros. Also, Fedora Atomic is much more like traditional Fedora than it is similar to, say, openSUSE Aeon or Vanilla OS. Grouping them together as if they are a cohesive group with very similar attributes is misleading. Of course, they share a few traits, but overall, the differences are far more pronounced.

Therefore, it is a false dichotomy to simply label them as traditional distros versus immutable distros. Beyond these names, which we have assigned to them, these labels don't actually adequately explain how these systems work, how they interact, how their immutability is achieved (if at all), what underlying technologies they use, or how they manage user interactions. The implications of the above. Etc.

Could this help Linux reach more mainstream audiences?

The success of the Steam Deck and its SteamOS are the most striking and clear proof of this. So, yes. Absolutely.

1. Not accounting SteamOS users.

Is there debian based immutable distro?

It's subjective. I freaking love Bazzite, it works for me. Not the other way around.

I remain interested in the immutables or atomic distros because I know a lot of smart people that swear by them.

I also don't try them just yet because I know a lot of dumb people like me that end up breaking a lot of stuff before quitting them altogether.

They could be amazing and just not perfected yet or they may be a meme and no one's proved it outright just yet. Will be lurking this thread either way lool :D

Bazzite is great. I was using Nobara before it, and Solus before that and Bazzite has been the best experience I ever had on Linux, I don't plan on changing distros as long as it remains a thing.

is nixos considered immutable or mutable? kind of has characteristics of both.

I've used Bazzite for the last year or so after distrohopping for a while and landing on Arch. I learned how 'atomic' distros, as the Fedora folks call them, work. It sounded like my phone, where apps are relatively sandboxed and automatically update. I said 'this is how computers should work' and stuck to it.

I wouldn't use standard Silverblue/Kinoite or standard Fedora. The uBlue images include so many drivers and fixes on the image that make the primary distros look incompetently made if you're not a power user. They wouldn't like me saying that because their work is only possible because of what Fedora does. But by that I mean, you will eventually run into something that doesn't work and it always comes down to some licensing or scope issue that the developers simply don't care about.

Having to do literally anything extra to get your NVIDIA GPU drivers frankly isn't acceptable when that's not the case for AMD cards. Let alone having to modify grub in the worst case if your distro doesn't boot properly. If I have a part or plug something in that isn't some hyper specific piece of technology, it should just work, because it isn't 1999 where you need driver CDs anymore.

The main tradeoff is that for users who aren't very technical, installing anything outside of flatpaks probably won't make any sense. They have guides, and stuff like brew and distrobox isn't that difficult when you understand it. But having 4 different ways to install stuff (flatpak, brew, distrobox, layering) sounds ridiculous and confusing on its face.

I have a practically 0 maintenance system with Bazzite and that's the way I like it even though I'm perfectly capable of running anything else and modifying it to my liking. The average user isn't going to care about anything they're missing by not being able to modify certain files, or if they do, there's probably a better way to do whatever it is they're trying to do that doesn't involve running random bash scripts.

I would recommend Aurora and Bluefin to all my Windows/Mac friends who aren't gamers, and Bazzite or Bazzite-gnome to everyone who is. I would never recommend anything else at this point, not even something like Mint, because I consider the uBlue images to be just that good and the tradeoffs of the weird program installation to be more than worth it. Other immutable/atomic distros are too immature (like Arkane Linux) or work fundamentally differently to Fedora Atomic and rely more on things like snapshots (like OpenSUSE Aeon/Kalpa) so I'm not really comfortable recommending them either.