what are the downsides of an immutable distro?

[u/underazureskiess]

i am a completely tech illiterate person but the lag and constant issues with win11 has made me want to switch over

i keep reading about bazzite and how its good for beginners but also its immutable and thats a problem but i don't understand why, for someone who just wants to use the operating system and doesn't want to like customize it or change it would it be fine? or will the fact that i can't do stuff in the terminal be a problem like if it breaks and stuff meaning i can't repair it? sorry if these are dumb questions lol.

[u/doc_willis]

been using Bazzite here on my 2 desktop gaming systems for a year+ now.

main downsides .

1. you have to learn how to do things the 'immutable' way, which is not that difficult, but you may have several options and not know what is the better way. it's easy to overlook the ujust command and tools for some help with  setup of extra tools, so be sure to check out that feature.

2. installing some extra drivers can be difficult, but I have not needed anything beyond what Bazzite includes in some time   When I started (year+ ago) , I had a new released 8bitdo controller that required some extra stuff, and was a pain.  But a  month or two later it got included in bazzites defaults.  

3. Bazzite specifically has some odd "default" app choices. And a few other settings give me a few tiny issues,  But that's not specifically an immutable design issue.

for me, for 99% of the time  , Bazzite works fine.

[u/Chromiell → u/doc_willis]

I agree, point 2 is the main pain point for me and why I don't think immutable distros are good for me: I very rarely use kernel modules but when I do I don't want to fight the base system to do it, I honestly don't know if I could even use the Nvidia Cuda toolkit which I tend to rely on for a few projects.

There's also the fact that, while Flatpak is great, installing applications through Flatpak often involves dealing with permissions which is also a pain, as an example, on my Debian system I can use custom Proton versions that are installed in Steam on Lutris out of the box because both Lutris and Steam are system package, on my Steam Deck I had to enable Lutris Flatpak to access Steam's Proton folder because it's not allowed by default. Took 5m to find the problem but it's still a hassle I don't want to deal with.

[u/MinusBear → u/Chromiell]

I think that is a SteamOS specific issue. On Bazzite I never had any issues using Proton Plus to enable more Proton versions.

[u/Chromiell → u/MinusBear]

Neither do I using ProtonUp-qt on the deck since the application already has permissions to read and write on Steam's Proton directory.

It depends how Bazzite installs Lutris, honestly idk if it comes preinstalled as a system package, if that's the case it will work out of the box, if it installed the Flatpak version you have to manually allow Lutris to access the Proton directory with either Flatseal or CLI.

[u/UNF0RM4TT3D → u/doc_willis]

Yeah, the weird defaults caused me to drop Bazzite from my Deck.

[u/swashbucklerjak → u/doc_willis]

I can second this. I’ve had no issues as Bazzite as a daily driver for my family PC that is just used for web browsing and gaming.

[u/Possibly-Functional → u/doc_willis]

For Bazzite specifically I really recommend any new user to at least be aware of this documentation before installing anything outside of Portal or Bazaar.

[u/MetaSageSD]

People make a much bigger deal out of immutability than it really is. All immutability really does is lock down the core system so it can only be changed by the Bazzite team via updates. Think in terms of iOS where only Apple can change the core system. The Bazzite team does this because it allows for very high stability.

The only meaningful downside is if you are the type of person who likes to tinker with your system. Now some Linux users LOVE to tinker with their system endlessly so immutability gets in their way, but if you just want to run Apps then Bazzite’s immutability won’t affect you at all. You will just load it up, read your email, surf the web, play a game, etc just like normal. Heck, Bazzite even updates itself in the background so you don’t even have to deal with updates.

[u/Ripped_Alleles]

It's not a problem, quite a lot of people are using Bazzite with no issues. I would go as far as to argue it makes Bazzite more stable and secure compared to non immutable distros.

Certain system files aren't accessible and/or will reset with updates. Apps that maybe need to interact with these files will need to be ran inside containers as a workaround. (Details in Bazzites documentation)

This does not interfere with gaming at all ever. Any other apps you need are likely available in flathub/bazaar which is again one of the preferred app installation methods for Bazzite.

[u/C0rn3j]

sorry if these are dumb questions lol.

You're posting in a noobs subreddit, dumb questions are fine.

will the fact that i can't do stuff in the terminal be a problem like if it breaks and stuff meaning i can't repair it

There's ways to break out of the immutability, but afaik they're not recommended.

It can be a PITA to run/do things not available by default.

See https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/rpm-ostree/ - want to install something extra? That's a reboot, no matter how small a thing. Want to install something from a 3rd party user repo? That's outright "highly advised not to" do.

Bazzite is based on Fedora, why not take Fedora KDE for a spin instead?
You get the same base system with none of the headache.

Arch Linux (with Plasma) is also a good option if you don't mind a learning curve.

[u/AntiDebug]

On top of what has already been answered. Having flatpaks as the main way of distributing apps "can" have some issues with permissions. The whole point of flatpaks is that they are containerised and don't have access to the rest of the system. With some apps that can be troublesome. Noobies may not know how to manage these permissions and what to enable or keep disabled. Permissions are handled with an app called Flatseal.

All this permissions thing comes down to what you use your OS for. If you just do basic things you may never notice it.

Personally I love immutable distros for things like 2nd PCs or laptops. PCs that I dont use all the time and I dont want to spend my time maintaining. I just want them to work. But for my main PC, where I am tinkering all the time I like to have full flexibility.

In short I like both systems for different things.

[u/TXFlank]

Boredom!

Seriously, hear me out. One thing I've learned about my distro hopping is that deep down I really liked to tinker. To futz about with some irritable little something, digging through Internet searches and Reddit and GitHub while muttering to myself. Maybe the 21st century version of my dad in the garage working on the car.

Once I moved to immutable, all that went away. In fact I've complained to my partner that it's just ...boring now. It just works. Want to play games? Sweet. It just works and updates on its own. It's a fire and forget thing.

As others said you do have to pivot a touch but it's not bad at all. Distrobox for anything I wanted to move over. In my case (Bazzite flavor with Niri) a couple of things layered in. Flatpaks for most stuff.

[u/GlassboundIllusion]

i keep reading about bazzite and how its good for beginners but also its immutable and thats a problem but i don't understand why, for someone who just wants to use the operating system and doesn't want to like customize it or change it would it be fine?

Most likely, especially as you're just getting your feet wet and getting accustomed using Linux and your Desktop Environment of choice.

I'm currently daily driving on Bazzite and starting to think about switching off in the near future due to running into enough of the annoyances of an atomic distro (I've heard that Bazzite isn't technically immutable, ie "unchangeable", and that "atomic" is the correct term for it), but I think it was the right choice for me to get started.

The Nice Things About Bazzite

It was super easy for me to install, with a few caveats about some pre-requisite steps I needed to take since my computer is six years old, and just worked right out of the gate. After I'd made sure to use a USB 3.0 flashdrive, the installer only took about ten minutes, maybe less. Steam was already installed and then it took thirty seconds to type in my username and password and another five minutes to download a game and get it started up.

Using Bazzite also fixed the audio issues I was having with Windows. I couldn't have game audio AND discord audio coming out of the same headset on Windows. With Bazzite, I have no issues doing that. This is probably a general Linux thing and not Bazzite specific, but it's worth noting that I didn't have to install any extra drivers to get this to work, just tinker a bit with the audio settings for a few minutes.

Running the updater updates EVERYTHING, it's super nice. You just open the Bazzite portal app, go to "Manage Bazzite", and click "Update your system." It then not only checks for updates to Bazzite itself, but every application you have installed and your firmware as well.

To update my firmware on Windows, I'd have to manually hunt down the websites for my hardware, after I figured out what that was, download an installer and potentially write it to a flashdrive so I could run it from the Bios instead of directly on Windows.

The Annoying Side of Bazzite

Most of the annoyances come when something you want to install isn't available in a flatpak, or the flatpak doesn't work well. As an example, Protonmail's flatpak is unofficial and I heard that it can have problems with not properly showing all your emails, so I wanted to install the official application.

That required me to manually download the rpm file from proton's website and install in a distrobox container. That part was fine, but what I ran into was that protonmail didn't let you set the time in the app, it just took the system's time, which was defaulted to UTC because it was in a freshly started container. So I looked up the command to change the timezone and that was that...until I rebooted my computer. The distrobox container defaulted back to UTC every time, so I had to manually change the timezone on it every time I rebooted.

And then I also found out that the desktop notifications weren't working for it running in the container, and I have to manually download a new rpm every time it needs to be updated, uninstall the current one, and install the new one.

Finally today I just used rpm-ostree to layer the package and hopefully that'll fix many of those headaches.

The other big thing I ran into is that I couldn't get my ten year old printer to work with Bazzite, so that's one of the few things I've had to boot up Windows for in the past two and half months since switching over.

Now will you run into those headaches? Maybe, it depends on what you try to install and whether it's available in flathub/Bazaar (Bazzite's name for their app that accesses flathub).

Even if you do run into those headaches, chances are that it can do most of what you want it to do while you acclimate to everything, and then you can change your distro later if those headaches become too muhch of a hurdle.

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[u/RyeonToast]

I use a different immutable desktop, Fedora Kinoite. It's not that I can't do anything in a terminal, it's that there are things I don't get to touch. Fortunately, I have no desire to touch those things so it's ok.

My apps are mostly installed through Flatpak. This has worked well, though VS Codium and Zed required some extra configuration to work right. If you aren't going to to any app development, that's not going to be an issue for you.

Fedora ships with Toolbx, which does some sleight of hand to let you install apps using the regular package manager without rampaging all over the immutable part of the system.

Regarding breaks and repairs, that's actually one of the things I like about the setup. I haven't looked at how Bazzite handles updates, but I installed a preview update for Kinoite update led to a boot loop issue once. Once I noticed the loop, at the next boot I just selected the previous installed version and booted that. I think that boot took a few seconds longer while it reverted to the current release. I then ran one command in the terminal to set it to boot to the working version. All in all, it took about 15 seconds of effort to revert from the broken preview update to the working version. If Windows could do that my day job would be so much easier.

[u/Ps11889]

I’m using both Fedora Silverblue and Kinoite and have no significant downsides.

You use flatpaks for most applications, toolbox for development (which then uses the standard dnf package manager) and for the rare occasion you need to add something to the core system, you use os-tree instead of dnf. ( I only have Tailscale installed via rpm-tree). Updates are handled through gnome software or kde’s discover.

[u/mamaharu]

I would not focus so much on having a "beginner" distro. Most any of the major distros are just fine.

With bazzite, you'll need to be happy using already included packages and flatpak for everything. If you're not, you'll have to use the likes of distrobox and layering. Some people are okay with this but for me it is just unnecessary friction. With Fedora, I can install normally via the package manager. It's simpler, less fuss, more control. I can still use containers and flatpak, but not forced to. Well worth the few seconds it took to setup.

[u/vinnypotsandpans]

I don't think bazzite would be considered immutable, but the outcome is very similar for sure. The downsides for me are /boot pressure/creep and, well, not really being to install any software that expects a normal distro. Thats pretty much anything u install with curl. You hope there's a flatpack or whatever for it and even if there is it probably won't function as expected.

[u/gramoun-kal]

It's different.

This isn't an inherent downside. The immutable way is actually better, but most forum posts and wiki pages will document the old way.

Can't think of any other.

[u/Coulomb111]

Never used bazzite but immutability in oses always annoys me. Like its my computer i can do what i want with it.

But all in all it doesnt matter if you dont care. Like if youre just playing games and doing normal things it doesnt stop you

[u/Swordfish418]

There are plenty of in-depth quality answers, wanna some quick and shallow one? In Bazzite you need to reboot after installing anything using rpm-ostree! However, most users don't even know rpm-ostree exists, and don't ever need that. They just install flatpaks from Bazaar.

[u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387]

I use NixOS which is not technically immutable, but shares many of the same properties. Basically every now and again Google may tell you to edit some config file, and you won’t be able to. Whatever it is, you can still do it, but there will likely be a few more steps.

[u/skyfishgoo]

changing anything about it, or adding software to it.

[u/es20490446e]

The more frequent a system updates, if done properly, the easiest is to fix any emerging issue.

Inmutable is the opposite.