Look, I’ve only been a Linux user for a couple of years, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we’re not afraid to tinker. Most of us came from Windows or macOS at some point, ditching the mainstream for better control, privacy, or just to escape the corporate BS. We’re the people who choose the harder path when we think it’s worth it.
Which is why I find it so damn interesting that atomic distros haven’t caught on more. The landscape is incredibly diverse now - from gaming-focused Bazzite to the purely functional philosophy of Guix System. These distros couldn’t be more different in their approaches, but they all share this core atomic DNA.
These systems offer some seriously compelling stuff - updates that either work 100% or roll back automatically, no more “oops I bricked my system” moments, better security through immutability, and way fewer update headaches.
So what gives? Why aren’t more of us jumping on board? From my conversations and personal experience, I think it boils down to a few things:
Our current setups already work fine. Let’s be honest - when you’ve spent years perfecting your Arch or Debian setup, the thought of learning a whole new paradigm feels exhausting. Why fix what isn’t broken, right?
The learning curve seems steep. Yes, you can do pretty much everything on atomic distros that you can on traditional ones, but the how is different. Instead of apt install whatever and editing config files directly, you’re suddenly dealing with containers, layering, or declarative configs. It’s not necessarily harder, just… different.
The docs can be sparse. Traditional distros have decades of guides, forum posts, and StackExchange answers. Atomic systems? Not nearly as much. When something breaks at 2am, knowing there’s a million Google results for your error message is comforting.
I’ve been thinking about this because Linux has overcome similar hurdles before. Remember when gaming on Linux was basically impossible? Now we have the Steam Deck running an immutable SteamOS (of all things!) and my non-Linux friends are buying them without even realizing they’re using Linux. It just works.
So I’m genuinely curious - what’s keeping YOU from switching to an atomic distro? Is it specific software you need? Concerns about customization? Just can’t be bothered to learn new tricks?
Your answers might actually help developers focus on the right pain points. The atomic approach makes so much sense on paper that I’m convinced it’s the future - we just need to figure out what’s stopping people from making the jump today.
So what would it actually take to get you to switch? I’m all ears.
Lack of interest. It doesn’t solve any problems that I have.
But just think about all the problems you’re not having that you could be solving!
oops I bricked my system
I honestly can’t think of a single time I’ve done this in the 20 years I’ve been using linux.
what’s keeping YOU from switching to an atomic distro
I dunno, it just seems like the latest fad. Debian/Arch work just fine.
The whole “I bricked my system” thing is just ridiculous.
I bricked it because the Ubuntu LTS 22 to 24 upgrade failed and I forgot and rebooted anyway
Near as I can tell they’re primarily aimed at desktop users who want to treat their computer like a smartphone.
I do software development and need a ton of tools installed that aren’t just “flatpaks”. IntelliJ, Pycharm, sdkman, pyenv, Oracle libraries and binaries, databases, etc. The last time I tried this I ran into a bunch of issues. And for what gain? Basically zero.
I don’t think that’s a very accurate assessment at all. NixOS, VanillaOS, and Bluefin are three of the first atomic distro’s I think of and they’re all heavily aimed at developers. All of them offer features to help separate development environments, which improve reproducibility of packages and environments. I prefer the Nix approach to containers, but each one definitely offers benefits for software development.
I do software development and need a ton of tools installed that aren’t just “flatpaks”.
Every atomic distro supports distrobox and other containerization tools, and many support Nix and brew.
These distros are good for people who want to treat their desktop like a phone, but flatpak kinda lets you do that on any distro. Atomic distros are great for those who want to use tools to separate development environments for purity and tinker with the ability to easily rollback.
I don’t think that’s a very accurate assessment at all.
It’s the sense I got. It made everything harder for me.
Every atomic distro supports distrobox and other containerization tools, and many support Nix and brew.
I like the idea of distrobox but it’s simply broken. Things just don’t “work”. I’ve hit weird problems each time I try to use it for anything meaningful (don’t ask what - I don’t remember and I was always jumping down rabbit holes to figure out how to just get things that should work working). And the shared home directory model is simply broken by design since you now get competing containers fighting over the same files. You can use per-container home directories and now you get to setup a linux environment from scratch for each distrobox. So much duplication of effort… What a terrible implementation of what is potentially useful idea.
I thought it would be kinda like using Docker but it’s so much worse. Docker works well because the containers are often pretty simple with few requirements. Desktop environments are messy.
And frankly it’s not really worth it in the end. pyenv, sdkman and others have basically solved that problem without adding weird things to debug. They genuinely “just work” and let you easily switch versions of java, python, groovy, etc.
Thats all fair, I’m not trying to say their a better option for you or developers in general, just that they do offer features and benefits targeted at developers. I disagree with the idea that theyre only made for users with very simple needs.
Ive never run into any issues trying to build random projects or run random tools is distrobox, but I also haven’t used it as a main development tool. I prefer Nix for that.
Those tools are definitely great too, they just don’t offer the same purity because they dont handle external dependencies. Guaranteeing a reproducible build environment is something I find very valuable.
I switched to nixos years ago. Its better now than it ever has been as far as available packages and etc. But it does present issues if you get off the beaten path - the “now you have two problems” issue. For instance:
- if software is not packaged for nixos already, you won’t be able to follow the ‘build from source’ directions on its github page or etc. You have to make a nix package or at least development environment first. That can be tricky and you won’t have help from the software dev.
- If software downloads exes that require libraries to be in a certain standard location, well, they won’t work. Android studio for instance, downloads compilers and so forth. There are workarounds, mostly, but it can take a while to discover and get working and I’m sure many people give up. Again, the android studio software and documentation will be no help at all.
That said, more and more projects are supporting nix, and nixpkgs has gotten really big. I think they support more packages than any other distro now.
I wonder if OP and about 3/4 of the people in here understand the difference between atomic and immutable.
FWIW, I actually do understand the difference 😅.
As the term “immutable distro” has -unfortunately- become a misnomer, I went with the (more) descriptive “atomic distro” instead. At least it rings better than names like “distro with transactional updates”, “distro with (some degree of) managed state” or -heck- “distro with anti-hysteresis properties” 😜.
Granted, perhaps the notion (and/or intention) to lump the likes of NixOS together with Endless OS under one oversimplified umbrella term isn’t being helpful either. But I digress…
Though, I find solace in the fact that (at least within these discussions) Gentoo is regarded as a traditional distro 🤣.
Or…, put more formally: Creating and maintaining precise terminology for the diverse Linux ecosystem is incredibly challenging. While nerds like myself would enjoy the classification work, the effort required to keep terms accurate and widely understood in this ever-evolving landscape is no joke 😭.
Anyhow, I might as well hijack the remainder of this comment to thank you and everyone else that made contributions to this discussion. Much appreciated!
I tried Silverblue.
And I wanted to run it without layering, cause everyone tells you to avoid it, since it kinda defeats the purpose of an atomic distro in the first place.First of all, it was buggy. As an example, automatic updates didn’t work, I had to click the update button and reboot twice for it to actually apply, even though it was activated in the settings.
None of the docs helped (actually, there wasn’t any in-depth documentation at all). And no one had a solution besides “It should actually just work”.
That’s the main advantage (the devs test with the exact same system you run) gone right from the start.Then Firefox is part of the base image, but it’s Fedora’s version, which doesn’t come with all codecs.
If you install Firefox from Flathub, you now have 2 Firefox’s installed, with identical icons in the GUI. So you need to hide one by deleting its desktop file. Except you can’t. So you have to copy it into your home directory and edit it with a text editor to hide the icon.
Then I went through all the installed programs to replace the Fedora version with the Flathub version, cause what’s the point of Flatpak if I’m using derivative versions? I want what the app’s dev made.Then it was missing command line tools I’m used to. Installing them in a container didn’t work well cause they need access to the entire system.
Finally, I realized even Gnome Tweaks wasn’t part of the installation, and it isn’t available as Flatpak.
That’s the point where I tipped my hat and went back to Debian. Which isn’t atomic, but never gave me any issues in the first place.Maybe it’s better now, I was on the previous version. Or maybe the Ublue flavours are better. But I don’t see any reason to start distro-hopping again after that first experience.
Flatpaks are problematic enough on its own and I avoid them when at all possible.
I’d never want to make my whole system flatpak based. That’s the opposite of what I want.
I like fucking around and finding out. I also don’t like roll backs, real men only roll forwards :)
(don’t take that too seriously please)
The reason most people still stick with windows/Macs. Current OS just works. I personally run mint, it works.
Before this i run windows 10 LTSC. The only reason i jump to mint is because it is almost the same as windows.
I really like Debian stable, and have for a very long time. I’m not too fearful of fucking up the system because Debian stable is more stable than most anvils, and I have timeshift installed with regular backups configured which get stored locally and to a RAID 5 array on my NAS system (which is also running Debian). Anything super duper important I also put onto a cloud host I have in Switzerland.
If I want to do something insane to the system, which is rare, then I test it extensively in virtualization first until I am comfortable enough to do it on my actual system, take backups, and then do it.
I am working to make my backup/disaster recovery solution even better, but as it stands I could blow my PC up with a stick of dynamite and have a working system running a day later with access to all of my stuff as it was this morning so long as a store that sells system hardware is open locally. If it were a disk failure, or something in software, It would take less than a day to recover.
So what keeps me from switching is that I really do not see a need to, and I like my OS.
Same. Been using debian stable for over two decades. It does everything I need,
At work we use EL distros in vms. All of them are backed up by image every 3 hours, so a non-booting system is generally best dealt with by simply restoring the whole vm from before the change.
I’m not opposed to atomics, but I don’t have the need and haven’t yet invested much time into learning their differences.
You just said it yourself. I do like to tinker. I can install a distro in 15 minutes. I can fix my system. I do make backups. Why would I need or want an atomic distro again?
I’m on Debian stable on my desktop but I tinkered with SteamOS on the SteamDeck, so Arch.
no more “oops I bricked my system” moments
I don’t actually know what that means. If the system because unbootable it’s because I explicitly messed it up, for example by editing
fstabor tinkering with GRUB. I honestly can not remember anapt updatethat broke the system, and I don’t just mean my desktop (which I use daily, to work and play) but even my remote servers running for years.So… I think that part mostly comes down to trusting the maintainer of the pinned distribution. They are doing their best to avoid dependency hell in a complex setup but typically, if you do select stable, it will actually be stable.
I do have discussions like this every few months on Lemmy and I think most people are confused about what is an OS vs. what is an application. IMHO an application CAN be unstable, e.g. Firefox or the slicer for your 3D printer because you do want the very latest feature for some reason. The underlying building blocks though, e.g. kernel, package manager, arguably drivers, basically the lower down the stack you go, the more far reaching the consequences. So if you genuinely want an unstable system somehow, go for it, but then it is by choice, explicitly, and then I find it hard to understand how one could then not accept the risk of “oops I bricked my system” moment.
It’s cool but it’s just more hassle than it’s worth at the moment.
My main reason is one you listed. My setup works well for me; I enjoy it; and I don’t feel the need to fix what ain’t broke (when the “fix” likely involves breaking a lot of things I need to fix, and generally a lot of time and effort). Plus, from what I can tell, if you are particular about parts of your system, the immutable distros on offer are not diverse enough to cater to you—eg can I use my preferred init system, runit? All the immutable distros I know are systemd (which I am not a big hater of, but I like and am accustomed to runit already).
Edit: saw what you said at the end about what it would take for me to switch. It would be if I had a real use case for it, eg I regularly had problems that an immutable distro would solve, or I could see a way that an immutable distro would drastically improve my workflow.
I actually used bazzite as my first mainstream linux distro and I hated it because every second command I pasted in didn’t work and I didn’t understand why. I eventually figured out it was due to the immutable nature of bazzite and began telling everyone to never use bazzite because it doesn’t work very well.
Now I actually understand what the actual upsides are and why it’s different I will change to mainstream distros to actually get a hold of what it’s usually like before considering changing back over.