Look, I’ve only been a Linux user for a couple of years, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we’re not afraid to tinker. Most of us came from Windows or macOS at some point, ditching the mainstream for better control, privacy, or just to escape the corporate BS. We’re the people who choose the harder path when we think it’s worth it.
Which is why I find it so damn interesting that atomic distros haven’t caught on more. The landscape is incredibly diverse now - from gaming-focused Bazzite to the purely functional philosophy of Guix System. These distros couldn’t be more different in their approaches, but they all share this core atomic DNA.
These systems offer some seriously compelling stuff - updates that either work 100% or roll back automatically, no more “oops I bricked my system” moments, better security through immutability, and way fewer update headaches.
So what gives? Why aren’t more of us jumping on board? From my conversations and personal experience, I think it boils down to a few things:
Our current setups already work fine. Let’s be honest - when you’ve spent years perfecting your Arch or Debian setup, the thought of learning a whole new paradigm feels exhausting. Why fix what isn’t broken, right?
The learning curve seems steep. Yes, you can do pretty much everything on atomic distros that you can on traditional ones, but the how is different. Instead of apt install whatever and editing config files directly, you’re suddenly dealing with containers, layering, or declarative configs. It’s not necessarily harder, just… different.
The docs can be sparse. 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.
I’ve been thinking about this because Linux has overcome similar hurdles before. Remember when gaming on Linux was basically impossible? Now we have the Steam Deck running an immutable SteamOS (of all things!) and my non-Linux friends are buying them without even realizing they’re using Linux. It just works.
So I’m genuinely curious - what’s keeping YOU from switching to an atomic distro? Is it specific software you need? Concerns about customization? Just can’t be bothered to learn new tricks?
Your answers might actually help developers focus on the right pain points. The atomic approach makes so much sense on paper that I’m convinced it’s the future - we just need to figure out what’s stopping people from making the jump today.
So what would it actually take to get you to switch? I’m all ears.
Back in the day when embedded devices are running Linux kernel 2.6, the kernel is gzipped and saved to an SPI flash, then extracted to RAM and run from there.
Does that sound immutable enough to you?
The decision on this design wasn’t for an immutable system, but just that flash chips were expensive. Immutability was an accidental achievement.
Actually we developers dreamed everyday we can directly modify the operating system ad hoc, not needing to go through the compile-flash-boot agonising process just to debug a config file.
You see, my point is, when a system is in good hands, it just does not break. End of story.
Maybe the next time before you guys press Enter after
pacman -Syyu(not exclusively saying your distro is bad, Arch pals, sorry), think about the risk and recovery plan. If you are just an end user expecting 100% uptime and rarely contributing (reporting bugs at least), consider switch to a more stable distro (I heard Debian is good), and ask yourself if you want an immutable distro, or do you just want a super stable system.dreamed everyday
every day. Two words, my dude.
go through the compile-flash-boot agonising process just to debug a config file.
Overlayfs was a thing since; what, Kernel 2.2? We had debugging and in-situ mods where required.
Lack of interest. It doesn’t solve any problems that I have.
Exactly. It solves problems which I don’t have.
But just think about all the problems you’re not having that you could be solving!
Debian just works, it doesn’t complain if I forget to update it for a couple years, and I don’t feel like reinstalling my os this year
You just said it yourself. I do like to tinker. I can install a distro in 15 minutes. I can fix my system. I do make backups. Why would I need or want an atomic distro again?
I use Bazzite on my Steam Deck because I wanted to get LUKS encryption for the hard drive (and otherwise do not wish to manually maintain the computer). I cannot take what is effectively a general purpose PC out and about without encryption. Especially not with the current political climate in my country (USA).
From dealing with SteamOS, I am already familiar enough with how to set up a full dev environment on the immutable distros. So while that is not a challenge for me, it is still a hassle to deal with. I’d rather just directly install my libraries and binaries rather than do workarounds in containers (and then remember the containers).
I think we’ll truly be in the immutable desktop distro future when I can do something like install the base distro image AND simply
dnf installsomething (e.g.nvidia-vaapi-driverorgcc) on top without having to layer it withrpm-ostree. That is, my dnf installs should transparently live on top of the base distro, and that way my base system will never break even if something on top of it does. The problem with layering with rpm-ostree is you are running the risk of a future failed upgrade. It would be like if your MacBook said “sorry, you installed a weird XCode library and therefore we cannot upgrade the OS” – and that should obviously never happen. Restoring my computer to a base state could be as simple asdnf remove *or a GUI option to “Revert to base + keep user files” and that should leave me with a functioning basic system.Anyway, even though I only use an immutable distro on one device I do see it as the future of Linux desktop computing. I am not up-to-date with the development efforts, but I think we’ll eventually reach a day when using and configuring it, even for advanced users, will be no more difficult than traditional distros. Maybe by 2030 that will be the case.
I made my remarks w.r.t. rpm-ostree and the Fedora family of distros because that’s what I use. Obviously the other immutable distros have their own versions of these tools and their own versions of solving the problems related to them.
Really cool in terms of rebasing and rollback, but Flatpak isn’t there yet (for me at least). Introduces lots of complexity without much benefit for me. They have their uses, but not for me yet. And honestly, I haven’t bricked my system in long enough that I don’t consider it a benefit I really care for.
Don’t get me wrong, they are cool, and I hope development is continued but they aren’t for me just yet.
I like the fact that linux is so easy to poke around in, even if it breaks. Breaking can be a good thing since that way I learn the most. I enjoy rebuilding my entire setup from time to time. I diskile the additional complexity.
Atomic distros dont stop you from breaking them, they just make it easy to undo breakage
I’m not trying to convince anyone, just explaining why I do the things I do and why I think the way I think. Fixing it easily misses the point, for me personally. If I can just undo my mistake then I miss the strong incentive to figure out what went wrong. Immutability itself is a wonderful thing. I love to write code using as much immutability as I can but thats for work. In my free time I want to raw dog a mutable linux distro because it’s fun for me.
Look, I’m a Slacker. It’s not the Slack way.
My current setup works perfectly fine, haven’t bricked my system in half a decade.
The learning curve seems steep. It seems to introduce a lot of complexity without much benefit for me. Docs are sparse and everything that is already out there is written with “traditional” setups in mind.The learning curve is non-existent for its use case.
You boot it up, open the software center, choose the apps you like and run them.
It’s like Android for the PC.If you notice a learning curve, run into barriers, or try to wrap your head around containers and layering, you’re already not the target demographic, and better off using a traditional distro.
Nah, I heavily disagree. It’s amazing for developers too, and they are explicitly part of the target demographic - not just of the normal variants, there’s even special developer-targeted images like Aurora.
updates that either work 100% or roll back automatically, no more “oops I bricked my system” moments, better security through immutability, and way fewer update headaches.
i have used arch derivatives for 3 years and only fucked my system once, it took less than half an hour to fix so this isn’t particularly compelling for me
chasing the new hotness is not something i do with my daily driver, might check it out on a laptop if i’m bored
I tried Silverblue.
And I wanted to run it without layering, cause everyone tells you to avoid it, since it kinda defeats the purpose of an atomic distro in the first place.First of all, it was buggy. As an example, automatic updates didn’t work, I had to reboot twice for it to actually apply.
None of the docs helped (actually, there wasn’t any in-depth documentation at all). And no one had a solution besides “It should actually just work”.
That’s the main advantage (the devs test with the exact same system you run) gone right from the start.Then Firefox is part of the base image, but it’s Fedora’s version, which doesn’t come with all codecs.
If you install Firefox from Flathub, you now have 2 Firefox’s installed, with identical icons in the GUI. So you need to hide one by deleting its desktop file. Except you can’t. So you have to copy it into your home directory and edit it to hide the icon.
Then I went through all the installed programs to replace the Fedora version with the Flathub version, cause what’s the point of Flatpak if I’m using derivative versions? I want what the app’s dev made.Then it was missing command line tools I’m used to. Installing them in a container didn’t work well cause they need access to the entire system.
Finally, I realized even Gnome Tweaks wasn’t part of the installation, and it isn’t available as Flatpak.
That’s the point where I tipped my hat and went back to Debian. Which isn’t atomic, but never gave me any issues in the first place.Maybe it’s better now, I was on the previous version. Or maybe the Ublue flavours are better. But I don’t see any reason to start distro-hopping again after that first experience.
Honestly what you are describing here would bother me too. For example on my notebook I rely on configuring grub to use kernel argument
amdgpu.abmlevel=0which fixes the screen colors getting washed out when in battery saving mode, but I doubt I would be able to configure grub on an atomic distro.
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.
what’s keeping YOU from switching to an atomic distro?
I tried switching to VanillaOS a month ago. I had a hell of a time getting my niche use-case to work, consisting of using Syncthing to sync my Obsidian notes to a server via Tailscale. Apparently, I had to create a custom VanillaOS image just to install Tailscale? Also, I couldn’t get
wl-copyto work. Also, docs were out of date and missing.See notes: https://lemmy.today/post/25622342/14849341
I like Arch because I have control over the system. At least with VanillaOS (not sure about other immutable distros), it seems like I’m supposed to give up control or fight with the system to let me do what I want.
I actually have accidentally bricked my Linux system in the past, but that was a long time ago and I learned from the experience. So it’s not a problem I currently have.
I still haven’t gotten to doing this, but actually, I was thinking the locked down nature of VanillaOS might be fine for my parents. They currently only use their Mac for browsing the web and not much else. Seems like VanillaOS might be a good fit for users that don’t have very demanding computing needs.
Sounds like I won’t be using Vanilla because that (obsidian + synching + tailscale) is definitely my primary need.
The last time I played with it, I just remember thinking, cool - but why?
The reason most people still stick with windows/Macs. Current OS just works. I personally run mint, it works.
Before this i run windows 10 LTSC. The only reason i jump to mint is because it is almost the same as windows.
Pretty much me.
I’ve been daily driving debian for many years. I’m very comfortable here.
In 2025 with docker containers and flatpaks the benefits of an atomic OS don’t feel very compelling.
Doesn’t solve any problem I have. Why switch?
Also, interesting concept the immutable one, but just… Why?
