Project Bluefin: A Linux Desktop for Serious Developers
Project Bluefin: A Linux Desktop for Serious Developers
Want a desktop Linux built on immutable Fedora with an Ubuntu-style desktop designed expressively for programmers? Then you want Bluefin.
From The New Stack
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I don't get it. What's the spirit of ubuntu? Is the underlying OS based on ubuntu instead of fedora?
What's the actual difference to fedora silverblue?
Half the answer to "why did you make your own linux?" is that it's awesome being able to revert back to the original fedora OS.
Because it follows a cloud-native approach, the end user has the flexibility to rebase back to the stock Fedora or any Universal Blue image. It's more like having someone install, configure, and maintain a polished Fedora setup for you.
And the other half doesn't provide any info either
Bluefin utilizes Fedora's OCI features to compose and build an OS image. This process is overseen by a well-structured community that is committed to automation and sustainability. The end result is akin to a configuration management tool like Ansible or Salt, but without the typical challenges associated with maintaining a custom distribution.
Yeah, they don't have a clear mission statement to explain the delta of "why does this exist, and what problems does it solve".
I think it boils down to: "because we can". "We can automatically build our own setup on github and that's what we do"
Installing tailscale, zsh, fish, vscode, extension manager, codecs, etc. out of the box isn't enough for a new distro. Especially because you break the signing of fedora by doing so.
out of the box isn’t enough for a new distro.
I'm a bit surprised that they mentioned "distribution" on the Bluefin website, as the Universal Blue site (the base project behind Bluefin) explicitly mentions not being a distro - and I know that Jorge tends to be very clear that they're not building a distro:
This isn't a distribution, you can always rebase back to Fedora without reinstalling. This is a unique relationship between upstream and downstream that is popular in cloud, but still new to the Linux desktop. "Custom images" seems to be a decent place to start since that's what people call them in cloud.
What’s the actual difference to fedora silverblue?
Hi! Co-maintainer here, you can find the differences in the github repo: https://github.com/ublue-os/bluefin
And there's a doc page going over it here: https://universal-blue.discourse.group/docs?topic=41
If you have any other questions I'd be happy to answer them!
Hi! Co-maintainer here, you can find the differences in the github repo: https://github.com/ublue-os/bluefin
I checked the github page you link and can find no differences listed, just three bullet points that appear to have be written by a PR team. You say an Ubuntu Desktop experience melded with Fedora Silverblue. Don't you mean GNOME? Ubuntu isn't a desktop environment, it's a Linux distro. GNOME is the desktop environment. That seems like an embarassing blunder in your copy when you claim to be building a distro for "serious" developers.
If it weren't open source, I'd think this was a scam. Weird choice.
IIRC, Bluefin uses the GNOME extensions that Ubuntu uses - so yes, GNOME in the same way that the current version of Pop!_OS is GNOME + their own extensions.
This is the umpteenth time I’ve come across this project but I just don’t get what they’re going for here.
These are just custom images, are they not?
If I wanted Ubuntu I’d use Ubuntu. If I wanted Fedora I’d use Fedora. Maybe I’m not getting it but I wonder how big of a population that’s out there that wants some Ubuntu mixed in with a touch of Fedora and some buzzword salad thrown into the mix.