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?

Project: https://arkanelinux.org/

  • yala@discuss.online
    152·
    4 months ago

    For me:

    • atomic updates
    • reproducibility
    • (to some degree) declarative system configuration
    • increased security
    • built-in rollback functionality

    and their consequences;

    • 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.)

    • ddh@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      41·
      4 months ago

      Yep, also ability to rebase to some other image. Maybe that’s what you meant by setting up a new system.

      • yala@discuss.online
        42·
        4 months ago

        Rebasing is (strictly speaking) found exclusively on Fedora Atomic (though I wouldn’t be surprised if Vanilla OS has also started supporting this like Fedora Atomic does). While achieving something similar on NixOS or GuixSD isn’t necessarily hard, the term “rebase” is not used for either of these systems.

        Setting up a new system with little to no nuisance is a direct consequence of managing your system declaratively. So no, I didn’t mean rebasing. Though, in your defense, Fedora Atomic does achieve it through rebasing. But, even then, it’s only one part of the puzzle.

        • biribiri11@lemmy.ml
          2·
          4 months ago

          ostree is based on OCI images, the basis for containers and the like. “Rebasing” just refers to swapping out the OCI image containing your root with another.

    • Samueru@lemmy.ml
      1·
      4 months ago

      You get all of this by using Btrfs in a regular distro.

      Recently kdeconnect broke on me, I just rolled back the snapshot to the day before.

      • yala@discuss.online
        4·
        4 months ago

        You get all of this by using Btrfs in a regular distro.

        No you don’t. Refer to this reply I’ve written to someone else.

        Btw, Btrfs is only a file system, snapshot-functionality isn’t automatically implied with it. See traditional Fedora as a reference; i.e. defaults to Btrfs, but doesn’t set up Snapper/Timeshift or anything to that effect.

        But, even then, snapshot-functionality provides only of a small subset of the benefits in an inferior way (as I’ve explained in the reply to the other person).