As a fellow Atomic user, my completely biased opinion is that you’ve made a good choice of distro for switching from Windows.
Don’t sweat the need or desire to layer a few packages. I see a lot of folks stress over this as if it’s a hard rule they are breaking. It’s a general recommendation and little more. I would be surprised if most users don’t layer at least one package (or even a few).
On my main workstation, running Kinoite at the moment, some of the layered packages include:
If I understand it correctly, layering an application is no more dangerous than a regular install on a non atomic os. In other words, every piece of software you have installed on normal fedora desktop is not containerized, if it’s software you were going to install anyways, layering it is the same as before (albeit significantly slower than install and update).
But that means that you get great benefits because 99% of your software packages are properly containerized
If I understand it correctly, layering an application is no more dangerous than a regular install on a non atomic os.
True~ish.
There’s an important caveat though; for whatever reason, rpm-ostree can outright fail to upgrade (due to conflicts related to layered packages) while an issue like that is more rare on traditional Fedora and dnf. Thankfully, I’ve never had a problem that I couldn’t solve with rpm-ostree reset run on a (previously) pinned deployment (through sudo ostree admin pin <insert number>). However, when used irresponsibly, this (i.e. layering) can outright destroy your otherwise very robust ‘immutable’ distro.
It’s easier to teach people to be cautious than to teach how they should act accordingly. Hence, uBlue’s documentation tends to be more conservative in order to protect (especially newer) users from shooting themselves in the foot.
This is true, because each layered package is reinstalled every time a new compose is pulled. If you layer 100 packages, 100 packages get re-installed. Which massively slows the update process
glib2-devel is a core package and pacman should be able to install it directly. Have you updated your package mirrors and upgraded the system since you installed the machine?
I had to use X11 before because using Wayland introduced many bugs (like freezing of some popups and the bottom tray). With updating to Fedora 40, Wayland became the default, which, again, caused many bugs mostly in electron apps (discord) a I wasn’t able to play a minecraft modpack because the whole screen was flickering. But after installing the nvidia driver 555 (still in beta at that time), everythings runs smoothly.
I haven’t been able to use it. I’m on Endeavour with KDE and every time I try to log in with Wayland I get a black screen and a very laggy mouse. The programs I open have streaks of black through them and are also laggy Not sure if I have some weird stuff installed in the background, but I’ve had to go back to X11
I’ve decided due to running into issues as well, that my system being built on x11 for a few years means I probably wont switch to wayland until I do a fresh install to avoid any potential issues around old x11 packages i’m running
I’m confused. Have you tried what is suggested in the arch wiki? Controllers are easier to get working on Linux than in Windows in my experience… And I’m on Manjaro. The Xbox 360 controller was considered the default for such a long time that in many cases, other controllers’ buttons had to be remapped externally to match the xbox 360’s in order to play games. It should be completely plug and play if your adapter and controller both work.
VRR does not work if you have a NVIDIA card and more than one monitor enabled. If you disable extra monitors it'll work, but that's hardly a workaround (and it's one of the main reasons I'm still on Windows).
I'm also getting a lot of xwayland crashes while playing or simply when trying to drag a window, those crashes freeze my entire PC and I have to reboot.
To be fair, most, if not all of my issues preventing me from fully moving to Linux seem to be fixed by using an AMD card, but I'm not in the market for a new card (I have a 3080) nor do I want to lose DLSS, which is a game changer to me.
VRR does not work if you have a NVIDIA card and more than one monitor enabled.
I recently learned that’s not entirely correct for Wayland. The critical thing is that VRR stops working if more than one enabled monitor is connected to the NVIDIA GPU. Meaning that if you connect only one display to the NVIDIA GPU and the other monitors to the integrated GPU it should just work.
I felt pretty stupid when I realized that I could’ve just switched a single cable and be using VRR way earlier. Didn’t even need a reboot to work. For reference, I’m using a NVIDIA GPU + AMD CPU with 1 G-Sync as my main monitor and one non-VRR as my secondary monitor.
Yup. I’ve never done anything besides installing NVIDIA drivers. Just switching the cable of the secondary monitor to the motherboard ports and it just worked. No reboot even, just making sure that adaptive sync is enabled in KDE or wherever.
It’s really unfortunate. Multi-monitor VRR is a must as I’m a gamer and I’d like my second monitor to be active when I’m playing, so I can use Discord and browse game guides, for example. I think I’ll continue to buy AMD graphics cards until this issue is resolved.
A VPN is definitely an example of software you should use rpm-ostree to install.
To add some detail, anything you install in a distrobox (or other sandbox/container) can’t add kernel modules, which I think is the error you’re getting.
A VPN is definitely an example of software you should use rpm-ostree to install.
I think it’s fine if you use rpm-ostree for it, but it’s not necessarily required. I recently found out that the Mozilla VPN developers are experimenting (!) with building a Flatpak, and having tried it myself, it works very well.
It’s definitely not required. ProtonVPN has a flatpak client, so it’s not like the client can’t exist in other layers, in theory.
I may have to follow up with IT, because they have OVPN for connecting to a different domain on the network, but not this one (probably low priority to change). Perhaps they can offer a way to connect that isn’t this specific client.
Oh! Note that in Settings under Network, there’s also a VPN setting that allows you to manually configure a VPN. It has an “Import from file…” option, so presumably, there’s a way to obtain a config file that should make it work. If not, knowing which options to set might work as well.
Anyone able to give an ELI5 to a linux noob? I’m struggling to find what the benefit is of Fedora’s atomic builds (is it just containerised apps? Is this an immutable distro?)…and then also what the benefit of Bazzite is on top of Fedora’s atomic spins?
The ELI5 for Fedora’s atomic desktops is that if Windows had an Atomic Desktop version, Program Files and most of the Windows folder would be read only, and each program you installed yourself would go into its own folder in your user directory. That’s the basic idea. It’s harder to screw up an Atomic system as long as you stick to containerized app formats like flatpak/appimage whenever possible. It makes it easier for everyone to diagnose problems, and easier for users to roll back if an update has problems. Even if you were to install it right now, you could use one simple command to “roll back” to any image from the last three months.
The benefit of Bazzite is you have all of the above, plus a lot of gaming-related stuff preinstalled which, if you were to install them yourself in a normal Fedora environment, you’d likely have to spend a lot of time just learning how they’re supposed to be configured, how they interact, which versions have problems, and how to troubleshoot problems when an update to one app breaks a prerequisite for something else; eventually you end up in config hell instead of actually using your computer. With Bazzite, the image maintainers are the ones in config hell - they work out the kinks, app versioning, communicate with upstream to fix issues, all that, so your system should be in the most functional state that a Linux system can be, so you only have to think about using your apps.
tl;dr
Atomic Desktops are more resilient to randomly breaking from updates or user error, and are easier to revert to a prior state if problems do arise
Bazzite is a custom Atomic image with lots of gaming stuff preinstalled and preconfigured to work properly out of the box
If you’re a gamer and wanting to try out Linux, Bazzite is going to be the least painful way to get your feet wet.
Immutable distros are excellent for daily driving. I daily drive one myself!
Atomic systems or rpm-ostree is an interesting concept and may well be the future of distributing linux, but it has a lot of compromises. It may not be the first place to start when leaving windows.
The problem is all the apps and things you may wish to do with your OS. Flatpak is the preferred method of installing apps as it doesn’t interfere with the OS, but that is a compromise that means more overhead for running apps including memory and disk space, and less integration with the host OS than traditional apps.
You can overlay native apps but the more you overlay onto the immutable os, the more complex upgrading gets and the risks of breaking stuff.
I’m not sure I would be starting with an immutable OS when switching away from windows. While it has a lot of theoretical benefits, its a work in progress and with significant compromises at the moment. Your VPN may just be the first of many programmes you find you need to overlay.
I personally would look at a more traditional install, get it working how you like and if you find Linux works as a permanent home then think about how you might recreate that with an immutable OS base. If your needs a re very simple then maybe it’ll be easy, but if you’re using lots of software and tools (particularly if its not available Flatpak) or custom OS config you may find atomic desktops are not yet quite ready for you.
It could be frustrating and off putting if you try linux immutable, find loads of problems and attribute that to linux when its actually the immutable OS that’s the cause.
I currently run Bazzite full time on an HTPC laptop, but I don’t use that for work purposes at all. It’s been great, and I would be a little sad if I couldn’t fit Bazzite into my use case.
But I’m fully aware that my frustrations are atomic problems, and I’ve had no issues installing the software I need on non-atomic distros. The reason I’m so smitten by atomic distros is the fact that there’s theoretically no down time. I’ve had distros break in the past due to some squirrely install or update, and I’ve never once had that issue on Bazzite.
I just recently learned that openSUSE users also have a lot of stability due to btrfs snapshots, so maybe that’s really the feature I’m looking for. I don’t know much about it, honestly.
But I’m fully aware that my frustrations are atomic problems
Are these frustrations solved by layering with rpm-ostree? If so, just go with it. I’ve always layered over a dozen or so packages and it has worked out fine; it’s defaulted to automatic upgrades in the background, so you don’t feel much of it anyways.
I just recently learned that openSUSE users also have a lot of stability due to btrfs snapshots, so maybe that’s really the feature I’m looking for. I don’t know much about it, honestly.
I love openSUSE and what they do with Btrfs snapshots and Snapper.
However, in terms of ‘robustness’ and ‘stability’, I don’t think anything currently out there can hold up to Fedora Atomic, Guix System and NixOS. This is just by design; the leap from traditional to atomic, then reproducible and finally declarative ensures that issues related to hidden/unknown state, accumulation of cruft, bitrot, configuration drift are left behind in the past. If Btrfs snapshots + Snapper would have been sufficient, then openSUSE themselves would never have desired the creation of openSUSE MicroOS (i.e. their attempt at an ‘immutable’ distro) in the first place.
If Btrfs snapshots + Snapper would have been sufficient, then openSUSE themselves would never have desired the creation of openSUSE MicroOS (i.e. their attempt at an ‘immutable’ distro) in the first place.
An excellent point.
But to your earlier one, I can get the VPN client working outside of a container. There’s even an RPM file from the vendor, so installing it is just as easy as installing any other package.
But to your earlier one, I can get the VPN client working outside of a container. There’s even an RPM file from the vendor, so installing it is just as easy as installing any other package.
I just recently learned that openSUSE users also have a lot of stability due to btrfs snapshots, so maybe that’s really the feature I’m looking for. I don’t know much about it, honestly.
I’m been daily driving openSUSE Tumbleweed for almost a year and from my end there are no problems with it. In fact, no problem that can be pinned to the particular distro.
I ran into an audio issue with my Bluetooth Headset in Kernel 6.9 3, with sound profiles not appearing. However, this has now been fixed since 2 kernel updates, (eg.it was a bug in the kernel)
The snapshot feature is awesome and always worked without a hitch when I have been tinkering with stuff I dont know how it works.
It has my recommendation. Good for gaming as its a rolling release with all the new stuff to boot.
That’s good to know, especially the gaming part. I have tried it in the past, only briefly, and I remember enjoying the experience (older laptop, so gaming was out of the question). I’ll have to throw an ISO on my thumb drive to give it another try!
As someone who switched from Windows to Kinoite about 6 months ago (and now using bluebuild to create custom images), wether to use an atomic distro or not comes down to how much time do you want to spend learning everything.
I’m a very technical person with years of experience, and I’m still figuring a lot out. You’r not only learning about the ins and outs of linux, but now your adding more complexity with an atomic distro, and even more if you decided to create your own image.
Atomic distros are very much a work in progress and they do have issues you won’t find in non-atomic distros. Creating your image allows you to get around some issues you may run into that layering alone can’t do.
Also, keep in mind that version upgrades (which happen every 6 months or so on Fedora based atomic distros like Bazzite), can and do sometimes break apps baked into your image until they are updated (which also happens in non-atomic distros). Flatpaks can help avoid this breakage.
There are other distros that are gaming focused if atomic distros are not for you.
Atomic distros are very much a work in progress and they do have issues you won’t find in non-atomic distros.
And this is kind of how I’m starting to look at it, after reading all of these comments. There definitely feels like there’s a disconnect between services like Podman and atomic ideology born out of the fact that they were created with different goals in mind. If the two can be married a bit better, the learning curve can be flattened (and I think that’s a distinct future possibility, since Podman and Fedora Atomics have Red Hat backing).
Regarding breaks, being able to rollback is very handy, and I’ve used it many times when I was running Bazzite on my Steam Deck. Regressions happen, and I’ve experienced problematic regressions on non-atomic distros where my only option was to reinstall. This will be my daily driver that needs near full uptime, so whatever I pick, it’s gotta be solid without entirely sacrificing relative newness (i.e. not Debian).
Either way, there’s more to consider than I initially thought, and I appreciate your input.
We’re appreciative of your considerations and reservations. However, some of your views seem unnuanced at best or plain biased at worst.
The problem is all the apps and things you may wish to do with your OS.
I’m aware that the rest of the comment goes over this. But, I hope the mention of “all” here is merely an oversight.
Flatpak is the preferred method of installing apps as it doesn’t interfere with the OS, but that is a compromise that means more overhead for running apps including memory and disk space
While that’s technically true, a (relatively) modern device wouldn’t even care. I don’t recall OP mention their hardware specifications; but if they’re perfectly capable of running VMs, then I don’t see why they would be bothered by this (almost) unnoticeable amount of overhead.
its a work in progress
Sure…, but we’re not talking about alpha, beta or even RC software. Like, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but you make it sound as if it’s very new and/or immature. Fedora Atomic has been in the works for over 10 years. It first released their Fedora Atomic Host (currently known as Fedora CoreOS) in 2014 and later released Fedora Atomic Workstation (currently known as Fedora Silverblue) in 2018. Heck, Fedora has already put so much trust in their Atomic branch that they intend for 2028 that https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-strategy-2028-a-topic-index-for-our-planning-process/46733.
By contrast, what is it that you base this statement of? That it receives very active development that most other distros would be jealous of? That it rapidly implements all kinds of new features that you’re having difficulty keeping track of?
and with significant compromises at the moment.
This is a big claim. But I haven’t seen enough in your comment to substantiate this. Your two best claims are:
Flatpak is the preferred method of installing apps as it doesn’t interfere with the OS, but that is a compromise that means more overhead for running apps including memory and disk space, and less integration with the host OS than traditional apps.
Which is a problem of Flatpak on all platforms. The very same Flatpak that was recommended by people associated with Steam/Valve for Ubuntu. Furthermore, if OP creates their own image, then this isn’t even an issue; they can practically bake whatever they want into their image. There are also multiple tools to get this going. I achieved it in a weekend (as a noob) last year, so it ain’t hard. Finally, ‘over-reliance’ on Flatpak is not even a thing on Guix System and NixOS.
You can overlay native apps but the more you overlay onto the immutable os, the more complex upgrading gets and the risks of breaking stuff.
This is not an issue with your own image. If the image itself is busted, then it doesn’t come out of the pipeline. Hence, the busted image would not have been delivered to your device in the first place. And, again, layering isn’t a thing on Guix System and NixOS. Hence, this problem doesn’t exist for them.
Your VPN may just be the first of many programmes you find you need to overlay.
Do you (for some reason) imply that layering is necessarily a bad thing?
If your needs a re very simple then maybe it’ll be easy, but if you’re using lots of software and tools (particularly if its not available Flatpak) or custom OS config you may find atomic desktops are not yet quite ready for you.
I have yet to receive substantive evidence from you to support this view of yours. I hope you’ll deliver…
It could be frustrating and off putting if you try linux immutable, find loads of problems and attribute that to linux when its actually the immutable OS that’s the cause.
I could change the word “immutable” in the above sentence to “traditional” and it would have been an equally nonsensical statement.
Damn, is that a new model :D? Last time i looked there was no lightweight, amd, 15 Inches, big battery laptop
Edit: Im looking for a replacement of another 15 Inch Laptop from them. The display has an issue after it soaked full with coffee in a backpack. (Really not Tuxedo’s fault). I would prefer a framework, due to the easeness of repairs(display in my case), but they are too expensive for me and they dont have a Tux-Key on the keyboard, so i will probably buy that new Tuxedomodel :)
That model is a beast. I haven’t bought it yet, but i am sure i will (Steam Summer Sale) 😂
For what you get 1350€ is nothing, and they also give a 5 year warranty which is nice. The Display is perfect for media consumption, 10+ hours of battery life, the AMD CPU is a beast.
I’m using 555 open with hyprland. No issues and I can finally suspend and resume, using the NVreg_PreserveVideoMemoryAllocations=1 module param after being unable to all year.
Imo stick to amd. I was like you, I thought the Nvidia card would be an upgrade and I thought the rumors of how bad Nvidia was had to be at least a little exaggerated, but honestly it’s a constant pita. Aside from the suspend issue I’ve had random minor system upgrades cause kernel panics and fry my boot more than once this year. That bug is still unresolved btw, their response time leaves much to be desired.
Having dockerized ollama just work is nice, but it’s not worth it, and they seem to be close to a working vulkan based runner for that anyway.
Indeed. I have an AMD video card and multi-monitor VRR works beautifully in Wayland. But unfortunately, according to some replies (and yours), Nvidia doesn’t support it yet.
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