Linux

I have a small testing field. My mother is using Opensuse Aeon and my father in law is using Fedora Silverblue. Since I am their IT support it's fine. I asked what they wanna do on their Laptops and figured it doesn't matter if they use windows, mac or any linux distro. Since I am most comfortable with linux, it is what they are using now. They are happy and I am getting the same amount of questions as before. Had no real trouble since then.

Ive been using pop-os for my desktop for years. Ive had no update headaches, roll back issues, or anything else that would compel me to swap distros for one that made these things better.

So to answer your question:

None of the above are compelling features that justify the work to switch off an already very stable distro.

ive been meaning to even try another distro for a while, regardless of being immutable or not.

but my machine works just fine how it is. why change it?

Probably because everyone is still constantly recommending Mint as a good distro for beginners.

I like fucking around and finding out. I also don't like roll backs, real men only roll forwards :)

(don't take that too seriously please)

Because it took me a few years to create my perfect Fedora workstation installation.

If one days it becomes bricked, I’d probably switch to an immitable distribution, but I’m sticking with workstation as long as it works.

Also there is no real upside to switching for me.

Long, LONG, time linux user here, but to answer your question, most general users don't tinker. They want it to 'just work,' which is why Apple, and to a lesser extent Windows, has dumbed everything down and made it proprietary (beyond just the locked in money thing) so users don't have to think. Plus, support is a big money maker, for the corporations anyway.

For me it's too much time investment, I don't want to tinker with my OS. The fact that it's so common to screw up a system that atomic distros are becoming much more popular is a good example, I want an OS that doesn't get screwed up in the first place.

I switched a workstation to Secureblue for the very specific security priorities targeted by that project, but I think for the majority of users, the main reason for not switching to atomic is one you mentioned: why fix what isn't broken? The main selling point promoted to potential new users seems to be that updates don't break anything, but I can't remember a single time since Debian Sarge that an update broke anything for me, and I actually find the rpm-ostree package layering and updating process to be far more of a headache than otherwise.

Unless it's prepackaged like a steam deck, moving from the traditional way of doing things to atomic is a major change. Like any major change, people need a good reason to make it, and I think right now the only compelling ones are either hyper-specific (switching to okd and needing to build it on coreos, wanting to move to a specific atomic project, etc.), or just general curiosity.

Traditional distros have decades of guides, forum posts, and StackExchange answers. Atomic systems? Not nearly as much. When something breaks at 2am, knowing there's a million Google results for your error message is comforting.

This is my reason. I've been using Arch exclusively for a few years, but have used it on and off since 2008. I still don't consider myself an expert by any means, and I frequently pull the docs and old forum threads to solve issues I run into.

Documentation is the most important deciding factor for me. I didn't use more fully featured distributions, even if they were "easier" becuase if I can't look up the answer, and I have to live with something because I don't know what button to press... I mean you may as well just give me a windows box again.

I'm currently testing fedora (upgrading from mint) and since I'm fairly new I don't want to venture into the fairly unknown territory that is Immutable atm.

Plus, I using a VPN, its crucial for my work, and I already see there are some issues with it because it has to be layered and blá bla bla.

Basically I'm just giving Atomic distros one or 2 years more so that the technology matures, software developers start taking it seriously enough to work around them, and for guides to start coming out.

Most of the ones out there are weird, anti-configurable systems like mobile phone OS.

The only ones that really seem like "the future" in my eyes are Nix and Guix.

And I'm not going to use those because I already have a good setup with my conventional distro (Debian). Anything less than absolute perfection will not get me to switch.

Nix is imperfect because it uses systemd. Guix is imperfect because it has a smaller selection of packages, and a more difficult configuration system.

Immuteability is what enabled me to finally switch over full time. I don't think a lot of geeks yet realize how huge they are going to be for wider-spread adoption.

The biggest thing for me is that a lot of them don't officially support dual-booting on one disk, e.g. Kinoite. I like to have multiple distros installed so I have a fall-back. I love using Tumbleweed for gaming, but I'd love to use an atomic distro for my development work. But I don't want to use one in an unsupported way, as that defeats the point in my eyes.

Tried one of the universal blue images on a Chromebook. It was nice. But it didn't contain the scripts/configs to make the audio work. So that was that!

I like the concept, though.

I have already switched after arch out of nowhere disabled ipv4. I tried using fedora atomic but the lack of non-free software just didn't work for me (blender + hybrid NVIDIA graphics). I am using bazzite for a week or two and so far so good.

My current distro uses APK 3 as a package manager and that is already atomic. So I guess my current setup works fine, without any of the other hassles and limitations.