Jumping on the trending bandwagon of Immutable Distros, Is there any chance or discussion among Garuda developers of an immutable version of distro.
Features
Android like A/B structured rapidly updated system image that is tested thoroughly for severe bugs , which is non-writable in case of error it switches to inactive slot and fixes buggy one in background
User has choice between Gnome/Plasma with both variant having Nvidia edition too, because more than two editions would be very difficult to maintain
Using openQA from opensuse or something like that for ArchLinux to prevent unbootable snapshots from slipping through.
Partition layout of 20GB system partition with (A+B slots) and rest all for /home and other persisting data
If user installs app/packages they install in a separate container like distrobox does but the container is based on garuda so that it has all garuda features like btrfs snapshots to even go back revisions ago before an app or buggy package was installed in container.
Allowing partition-managing tools like GParted to only access Disks that don’t have current OS and aggressively stooping users from installing apps to mainOS, so that users can’t mess up the immutable system .
Finally something like NixOS reproducabilty feature to recreate a garuda container from a simple XML file.
An install media that would rectify any error by wiping the current OS partition and reinstalling latest verified bootable snapshot without affecting the /home or persistent data space
Caveats -
Many KDE themes are installed in system root like the SDDM and Plymouth themes , so bypassing this obstacle.
Creating an elegant updating system that updates efficiently without needing to use large sum of data maybe using zync2 like Garuda downloader
When user runs any command even if it uses root it should run inside the Garuda Container
Do you want an immutable (never breaking )Garuda Linux ??
Yes ! but without compromising current benefits of Garuda
No ! I like bleeding edge Arch , if i wanted extra stability i would use Debian with 2 year old packages
In my book simply no to immutable. I like tinkering and if I break something I can just roll the system back or find a solution. Immutable reminds me of when Apple had a app on their systems to remove programs they felt would break the system. A app that did this without informing the user it was doing so. Went over like a lead balloon.
While I do think immutable distros are interesting, and have a place in the Linux environment; I’m not sure I’d want a Garuda immutable version. Granted I am new to Garuda, and Linux in general but it seems like Arch and immutable or atomic don’t fit together as far as userbase goes.
Also as it seems like the Garuda dev team is fairly small, I feel like it might be spreading them too thin to offer both immutable and normal Garuda. Just my thoughts after being here for a short while though so maybe I’m wrong.
That sound like a time consuming prospect, nice of you to volunteer for it. Although, I thought you were going back to Windows because Linux is too much of a misery.
Sounds complicated creating an immutable version of Garuda when you’re using Windows. Good luck with that.
Yes , it would be very time consuming , after countless modifications arch loses stability but in containerized garuda , you can reset the container with your xml
I dual boot , MS Office does not works in linux , it is better to use Winodws than to run windows in virtualbox (office 2007 works with wine but it is too old )
After looking at a couple of reviews for BloendOS I can actually see it’s use for certain people. I believe my prejudice towards immutable OS’s came from running various Ubuntu based OS’s where on more than a few occasions I got the latest updates of various apps I use on a regular basis. Updates that had new features I wanted and had been waiting for. Only to have those distros do a new release and I install it only to find they blocked the latest version of the programs I just updated in the previous version of their OS release. The claim was so the system would stay stable, but the issue with that claim is the versions I had in the previous OS release were stable and so was the OS. Hence why I switched to a rolling release.
When using Windows over 20 years ago I kept a testing machine in a frozen state for myself. I also froze my kids Windows machines, because of their frequent viri and malware infections. After a while I simply formatted Windows on the kids machines and insisted they use Linux.
I’ve never gotten viri or malware on a Linux machine in decades of use. One day desktop Linux may have enough of the OS market share that virus/malware infections become common. Until then though, I won’t worry about running an immutable Linux machine because I don’t feel it’s necessary. Keeping backups, and not doing risky things on the internet is enough to keep me satisfied that I don’t require an immutable system when running Linux for the forseable future.
Immutable distros are a fad. just don’t mess with stuff you don’t understand and keep backups. with that kept in mind immutable distros only have downsides.
Immutables make sense in the context of like a pc for grade school kids or like a home theater pc or for that grandma that only browses the web an nothing else. Nothing I would recommend but even if minor they have a place. Like the steam deck.
Well I’d say NixOS is also immutable in a way, and it’s great. Though I don’t like the way immutable distros do it with a fixed rootfs and no way of natively installing applications.
