Are we going to see arch based immutable distros in the near future?
Hi there folks, I'm still learning about Linux and have yet to dip my toes properly in any arch based distro. Have for the moment fallen in love with the immutable distros based on Universal Blue project. However I do want to learn about what arch has to offer to and plan on installing default arch when I have time. But have been wondering why I haven't heard of any immutable distros from arch based distros yet.
So, am left wondering if there are talks within that Arch community of building immutable distros?
While writing this post I found a project called Arkane Linux, which seem to be very interesting. Does anyone have nay experience with it? Is there a specific reason why immutable wouldn't be a good idea when based on Arch?
But have been wondering why I havenât heard of any immutable distros from arch based distros yet.
If your question is "Why doesn't Arch have its own atomic/immutable spin/flavor like Fedora and openSUSE have in their Silverblue/Kinoite and Aeon/Kalpa respectively?", then the answer simply lies in the fact that Fedora and openSUSE have a lot more incentive for venturing the unexplored waters of atomicity/immutability as their enterprise counterparts exist and will benefit majorly from it. And I haven't even mentioned how most of the new stuff first appear on Fedora (systemd, PipeWire, Wayland etc) before they're adopted on other distros.
The enterprise counterparts also allow funding that is essential for erecting this from the ground. But, even then, the shift towards atomic/immutable is a difficult one with a lot of hardships and complexity. From the ones that have developed their atomic/immutable projects retroactively (so GuixSD and NixOS don't count as they've been atomic/immutable (and declarative) from inception), only Fedora's (I'd argue) have matured sufficiently. But Fedora has been at it since at least 2017, so they've had a head start compared to the others.
In contrast to Debian (through Canonical), Fedora (through Red Hat) and openSUSE (through SuSE), Arch has literally no (in)direct ties to enterprise. Hence, it will only adopt an atomic/immutable variant if the incentive is high from the community or if it's very easy and only comes with major benefits. But, as even openSUSE is currently struggling with their atomic/immutable variants, it has a long road ahead before it becomes something that can be easily adopted by Arch. Hence, don't expect Arch's atomic/immutable variant any time soon.
However, if any derivative suffices, then at least the likes of blendOS, ChimeraOS and even SteamOS are worth mentioning here.
The biggest issue with immutable OSs is the lack of containerized apps. Most devs simply don't distribute their apps in flatpaks etc. Install fedora atomic. Fist think I want to do is install xpipe to manage my servers. Can't be don't in an unprivileged flatpaks. Great layer it on.
Let's try seafile next to sync my files and projects...the flatpak is maintained by a random volunteer and most up to date version is from a year ago. Great, layer that in as well.
Let's install a command line tool, before it was 1 line, now it's a whole lot of googling only to discover that the best way is probably to just have a whole other package manager like brew
The concept is great and it has lots of potential, just it will only work if devs start packaging their stuff in a format that works with the new paradigm (containers)
The biggest issue with immutable OSs is the lack of containerized apps.
Disagree. This is a non-issue for NixOS and Guix System. If anything, what you say only (somewhat) applies to Fedora Atomic or otherwise immature and/or niche immutable distributions.
For Fedora Atomic (and others that operate similarly), pet containers (read: Toolbx (and later Distrobox)) were originally envisioned as the solution. But, even Nix (and as you've noted brew on opinionated uBlue) has been used to that effect.
Though, yes, I don't ignore that sometimes you just gotta layer it. Thankfully, as that's exactly why we got that feature đ.
Not everything should be flatpakâd. In your case, xpipe (and in the future, waypipe) should always be installed in a docker container containing your normal âmutableâ OS. Itâs why Fedora is evaluating Ptyxis: when you open a terminal, instead of defaulting to your immutable root, it can be set up to go to a container which has your home mounted but a traditional, mounted root.
blendOS keeps everything simple, delivering on application and game compatibility from various sources while offering a lightweight atomic & declarative Arch system.
Aside from what others have already mentioned, atomic distros usually come with "batteries included", they have a desktop environment and bundled software. The goal is to have a complete setup where only the user space will need to be modified (for example by installing applications through Flatpak).
Arch doesn't really have a "batteries included" default install.
I think a true arch linux experience can be done with immutable distros by modeling themselves after something like a nixos config or an rpm-ostree treefile. Like, during bootstrapping, youâd feed in a config file which would install everything into a future RO root. Would definitely be a lot of work, though, since pacman does (and probably will never) have the capability to manage multiple read-only roots.
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/immutable distros.
Furthermore, it minimizes all kinds of issues related to or caused by bit rot, configuration drift and hidden/unknown states. (Note that you won't reap all of these benefits on all atomic/immutable distros.)
Honestly, IMO the end-user benefit is mostly that it sounds cool.
All the benefits I've heard (including the ones in this discussion) don't actually derive from "immutability" but from releases that stay the same for longer (which is what "more stable" used to mean), or the ability to roll back your system to some "known" working state (which you can do with snapshots and in a plethora of other ways).
What immutability means is that users are unable to alter their system, or at least not expected to... basically, it means what in corporate lingo would sound "altering your system is not supported" and that the distro actively makes it hard for you to do so.
This means users will not break their system because they followed badly some instructions they found on some badly written forum post anymore and blame the distro for it, but it also means that users who actually have a reason to alter their system and know what they are doing will have a hard time doing it (or be unable to), which is precisely why I left macos and went back to linux for my work computer some ten years ago (I spent half a day doing something I could have be done with in five minutes and said to myself "never again").
For the team/company that builds it, an immutable distro will likely be easier to test and maintain than a "regular" one, which should then indirectly benefit the users (well... as long as the team/company interests are aligned with the users' of course: shall windows get easier for microsoft to maintain, how much benefit would trickle down to its end users?).
Users who switch to an immutable distro should see a decrease in bugs short-term. In the longer run, I'd expect distros (especially the "commercial" ones) to reduce the effort they spend in QA until quality drops again to whatever level is deemed appropriate (if bread costs less I'm still not gonna buy more bread than I need... same goes for quality).
Basically, it all boils down to "immutable distros cost less to maintain" (which, don't get me wrong, is a net positive).
I must say I find it slightly concerning to have heard several "veteran" linux users say that immutable distros are so great that they will install one on their parent/child/SO/friend's PC but on their own.
It's also a bit unnerving to notice that most of the push for immutability seems to come from companies (the likes of debian/arch/gentoo/etc. are not pushing for immutability AFAIK, and they certainly don't have the initiative in this field).
I'm not sure how much immutable distros will benefit the community at large, and... I'm not even sure they will end up being very successful (windows/macos follow in whatever makes is more profitable for microsoft/apple, linux users have choice).
I hope that immutable distros will prove both successful and good for the user community at large.
edit:
Forgot to explain the positives I hope for: since immutable distros should require less effort, I hope this will lead to more/better "niche" distros from small teams, and to distros with bigger teams doing more cool stuff with the extra manpower
I could see it being useful for like an office or something, where you do a big roll-out to a bunch of people. I'd assume having the system files be read-only and (presumably) the same on every system would eliminate a lot of guesswork for IT troubleshooting.
In immutable distros, you or any other programs that are installed on the system cannot modify the system files. That includes the system configuration files as well as applications. Its goal is to solve the problem of an entity gaining admin privlieges to your system and cause loads of damage. There are some addtional benefits too:
Updates apply at reboot
Root partition is read-only
Considered very secure
Sandboxed applications via flatpaks, snaps and appimages.
steam deck? I wonder how many full-time staff valve devotes to testing and pushing regular updates.
I think a lot of arch people want the bleeding edge updates, so it seems a lot like to go btrfs or and setup snaphots or something if they want a safety net.
Generally speaking, though, pacman is really basic, and the majority of the atomic/immutable magic happens in the package manager. Thatâs why only existing, complex package managers such as rpm-ostree (which shares a code base with DNF) have full support for it.
Have actually tried it! And while I love the concept and how it works, its a bit too much to learn for me at the moment. It's defo something I am going to pick up again in the future though! Also amazed me exactly how many more packages it had available than the AUR, mind blowing.
I just started toying with Arkane Linux. It's fairly easy enough to make your own image and they provide some simple templates you can use if you don't want Gnome. To me, the greatest thing about Arch is the AUR and unfortunately it doesn't support AUR packages out of the box. This might not be a problem since you could mostly get along with flatpaks or distrobox. It might be a chore for someone new to Arch to have to compile something straight from the AUR that your device needs to function, like what I've had to do.