https://www.phoronix.com/news/Ubuntu-Desktop-Immutable-Plans
https://ubuntu.com//blog/ubuntu-core-an-immutable-linux-desktop
It seems like ‘immutable’ is the buzzword of the year. Is it really worth the hype?
Interesting blog post and article nonetheless.
Not that I’ve ever learned to really like a Gnome-ish environment, Fedora Silverblue probably has turned me off of it for good, not only with Wayland as their default (which can be easily avoided), but with gnome-software for the most part. After a first installation, a first system-update takes more than an hour, due to g-s. - Simply “overkill” to me and my “computer-museum”. 
Granted, the Gnome-devs have added their part to that dislike, as well.
OT:
With all that, I still can understand, why one would like to run Budgie desktop as a daily driver… (although this isn’t entirely my piece of cake, either).
However, this level of stability and security comes with trade-offs for developers and tinkerers, restricting modification of the base OS in favour of a ‘just works’ experience.
Not for me as i don’t like snaps dislike Canonical and don’t care for containers.
I wasn’t even gonna get into snaps.
Generally speaking, I think we all have had enough of a so-called ‘just-works’ experience… as many, if not most all Linux users once went through this with other bulls in marketing.
Yeah, I mean it seems antithetical to the entire Arch/EOS approach. I get the “just works” needs but this seems to limit your own freedom for very minor tangibles.
I’m not in the mood for epic rants, the whole Xeyes not working on Wayland thing is bumming me out… I’ll just leave this here:
TL;DR: snapd is malware, don’t use it if you value privacy. Flatpak is fine, but bloated.
Regarding immutability… I’m so sick of this padded room mentality, where your own system thinks you’re too stupid to be trusted with responsibility about security and blocks you on every step. ThAT PoTAtO PEeLEr IS jUsT tOo dANgErOuS, We HavE tO tAke It aWAy FRom You, YOu Can EaT mASheD PoTaToEs WiTh skIn, It’S nOt TOo baD.[1] Doesn’t even let you get the global coordinates of the mouse pointer… Oh wait, we’re not talking about that here. But still, it sucks.
AMEN to that.
Bad analogy cause the best mashed potatoes are mashed red potatoes with skin, roasted garlic, butter, and milk. 
Just to be the devil’s advocate, if we will ever want to see the year of the linux desktop, it will need to be fool proof and stable like phones. If we ever want to see a linux phone that can compete with android, we will need containers and some kind of immutabilty. It kinda works for the steam deck.
Snap is hot garbage, last time I tried it, a lot of apps didn’t even start. I doubt canonical will pull off anything noteworthy. Silverblue is okay, but sometimes it just can’t update without some workarounds, not stable enough yet. I’m curious how stable VanillaOS 2.0 will be.
BARF I don’t have to even watch the video tell those are tooooooooo smooth. FYI chives belong on backed potatoes not mashed potatoes.
NEW FLASH it is already FAR FAR FAR FAR more stable than Windows. Then you have the fact that updates take FAR FAR FAR less time.
There are no chives in this video. Those are green onions. Furthermore, chef John explicitly points out that the green onions are optional and should be used only if one is taking photos, but otherwise, he suggests serving it without any garnish.
That depends on what one means by “stable”. There are two common meanings of that word, one refers to the frequency of updates, the other to software’s tendency to contain fatal bugs causing crashes.
Regarding latter, windoze has been terribly prone to crashing for decades now, Linux has been more stable in that regard since I can remember.
Regarding the former, most Linux system software updates much more frequently than windoze, so in that regard, one’s Linux system tends to be less stable. Especially rolling distros, like Arch. That certainly doesn’t mean that it breaks more often, quite the contrary.
Based.
Containers always were a joke, it’s excessive layer of abstraction for an illusionary safetiness with a price of a perfomance, complexity, time of development and difficulties to use.
Look at Windows, MacOS, Android, IOS, they’re covered in sandboxing and containerization like a “fashion” model covered in oil, did it made them more safe? Hell no. Not even close.
But phones, even Iphones never were proof and stable. There’s still a thing that apps are devided for Iphone and Ipad and many devs cannot properly implement universal adaptive UI.
MacOS, just burns down all bridges with a new version, kinda same with Windows but with an illusion of the compatabilty with software up to windows vista. While in reality most of the old windows software way much easier to run through wine.
Currently it’s mostly about inertion and market. Not to say, that most of the users even with internet acess are not able to make a bootable USB. They just use what is preinstalled on their device.
Kids born in mid 2000s and 2010s often, never even used a PC and spend most of their time with smartphones.
But situation isn’t better with smartphones usage either, though many of them know how to use APK, tinker a bit with setting, knowledge of rooting and jailbreaking isn’t very distributed among them.
My schoolmates born in 2000s and late 90s, knew like a common sense both how to root android or jailbreak ios and how to tinker with memory to “hack” games and apps, how to change hosts files to avoid playmarket restriction for rooted users and etc.
Yes. Not even a basic understanding of an OS, and how things work inside, not to mention hardening things. Just clickety-clack.
The idea is interesting, because it should always leave you with a theoretically working system that can’t be modified to basically be broken by the user.
It leaves you with flatpaks and snaps (let’s just leave out the fact I personally would never use them)
If you’re on Arch - you also lose the AUR - which . . . sucks
On Fedora - I BELIEVE you’d also lose copr - which sucks.
And lots of flatpaks and snaps don’t always work. . . They also need maintenance and updating. So, if your computer always turns on, but the program you’re trying to work doesn’t . . . you know work. . .
What’s the difference?
If I were a business - I would 100% be in on immutability.
If I were someone who wanted my computer to be my computer - I’m 100% out.
My wife does not have immutabiliity, I told her the same thing I tell everyone here. Don’t break it. USUALLY we break our systems, not the other way around.
Immutable desktops are all the rage right now. I don’t know if it’ll be the thing or not, but it sure is getting a lot of attention currently.
