toolbox is preinstalled on fedora silverblue/kinoite whereas distrobox isn’t. What’s the advantage of one vs the other? Why is toolbox preinstalled and not distrobox?
edit: thank you guys! I guess for me this means that I’ll use distrobox because it’s much more mature or documentation is a little bit better and I do not need (or have) fedora’s support
Can I ask why you choose to use one of those weird “immutable” distributions in the first place, out of curiosity ?
Not OP. But for me, atomic updates, reproducibility, (to some degree) declarative system configuration, increased security, built-in rollback functionality and their consequences; rock solid system even with relatively up to date packages, possibility to enable automatic updates in background without fearing breakage, (quasi) factory reset feature, setting up a new system in just a fraction of the time required otherwise are the primary reasons why I absolutely adore atomic[1] distros.
I disagree with most of the benefits you list (chief among them “increased security”) - not to mention half of them are already supported by traditional package managers - but I was genuinely curious so thanks for the rationale.
Ubuntu, then Debian on my University computers, broken every weeks with dpkg killed while updating (students don’t care properly shutting down computers).
Since we migrated to Silverblue, it just works. We can downgrade the system at any point in time, even previous release. Apps can be individually downgraded, locked at any point in history. Totally not doable with a traditional package manager.
I’m curious to hear your objections.
Do you deny that specific protection to some attacks is provided through the chosen model of ‘immutability’ on at least one of the atomic distros?
Hmm…,:
It has been my pleasure ☺️! I’m also genuinely curious to read your reply to this comment😉.
I really wanted to avoid a debate (doubly so in a thread where some dude just wanted some help), which is why I’m trying not to engage the various answers I got; though just one thing since I apparently can’t help myself: Qubes, which you cite, is indeed an example of such improved security done correctly, through an hypervisor and a solid implementation; not cgroups, some duct-tape and the same kernel, and thinking your security has improved. Thanks again, at any rate.
Understandable! Please consider coming back to this at some point (also possible in private) as I’m genuinely curious to hear from you.
There are may layers of security that every companies have different approach based by their users / their target customers.
All of the points of the previous comment are actually valid. Plus, immutable distros are much safer and easier to tinker with than traditional mutable distros. For example, an extremely specialized Arch setup would be much more stable and easier to jumpstart if it was a personalized Universal Blue image, even all your Flatpaks can be declared and installed at setup.
sure,
I already liked fedora for choosing sane (imo) defaults for the most part. I got to know the atomic builds just a few weeks ago. The advantage the atomic versions have over the traditional builds are that they are reproducible which is huge advantage for maintainers. Hence, it’s not directly an advantage for me but reduced workload for others.
The update process is much easier than with workstation as you just have to restart the system “without having to update”. It’s like android in this case, you just restart and have an updated system. Moreover, I can just switch to another system underneath without breaking the rest of the system. Although it might be better to have an additional layer in between the base OS, the DE and (graphical) applications.
Moreover I really like the idea of having reproducible systems, i.e. I can setup a working system with e.g. distrobox and distribute it to others. I have not yet used this but I like the idea behind it. This is not distro dependent but the atomic versions made me aware of it.
And I appreciate that there’s always a working system. There are other ways that can ensure a working system but it works very well (so far) and is directly integrated into the OS.
Not OP, but for me, the main benefit is how uneventful major distro upgrades are. Yesterday I updated to Fedora 39, and it was so anticlimactic to reboot and then be like: is it over? But that was really all there was to it.
The biggest advantage in my experience is that you get fresh cutting-edge packages and quick updates, and rock-solid stability.
This is having your cake and eating it too in the linux world. I’ve tried rolling release distros like Arch and Tumbleweed, and at some point eventually they’ll break somewhere and I’ll need to be a Linux admin and dig into the cli and fix them. I’ve tried point release distros like Ubuntu and Fedora, and after a few dist-upgrades something will break.
Debian is rock-solid, if you don’t mind your packages being years behind in updates. Which means less support for very recent hardware.
Immutable distros are the “just works” of Linux distros. Perfect for newbies and non-technical users, especially now that flathub is transforming into a robust app store. Perfect for gaming consoles like the steam deck. Perfect for gamers who want their new GPU supported but don’t want to spend time fixing something when it breaks. Perfect for a school to deploy a stable set of self-updating reliable desktops and laptops to students.
For someone like you who probably is already a savvy Linux user, I couldn’t give you any reasons to switch. I think if widespread adoptions of Linux happens, it will be via immutable distros.