[kwlug-disc] Bad review of "immutable" distros

[Ron]

William Park via kwlug-disc wrote on 2026-06-22 11:19:
> Since lots of people here are going ga-ga over immutable os...
>
>     https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=showheadline&story=20206
>     <https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=showheadline&story=20206>
>     https://blog.woralelandia.com/ten-1-reasons-to-avoid-the-immutable-desktop-en.html
>
I have had about zero interest in an immutable OS, but Linux Unplugged 
podcast had an episode on the new KDE Linux, which is immutable, and 
they heaped a lot of praise on it.

Since KDEneon is likely to go away at some point, their review made me 
add KDE Linux to the possible replacements. We'll see.

(Edited to add: Just saw Doug's post about immutable vs atomic, 
something I wasn't aware of. Not sure which KDE Linux is.)


As to the article..

I agree the concept seems most relevant to kiosks & appliances.

But I don't think it's fair to ignore the growing number of users who do 
not want to tinker, just use their computer as a tool. And for them, the 
ability to roll back to an un-borked state is invaluable.


 > standardizing the exact same OS image across millions of 
installations creates a beautiful, uniform monoculture. If a zero-day is 
found in that specific image, every single user on Earth gets 
compromised by the exact same payload.

I mean, isn't that how any distro has always worked? Fedora gets hit by 
a zero-day, every single Fedora user on Earth gets compromised? Not 
really seeing value in his point, even when he clarifies with "state 
drift" (all installs being slightly different due to user chosen suite 
of apps & libraries)

His "state drift" as security mechanism isn't compelling to me.

Plus, let's just ignore how many bug reports "state drift" causes 
maintainers when it's more a user issue (why did you upgrade the 
underlying version of Python?!? That breaks `apt`, etc.)


Then, he decided to make his embellish his point by making creepy faces 
at me (winkie face!!1!) and ... I'm out.


Okay, one more, paraphrasing:

 > /usr may be protected but $HOME is not: check mate

So ... no reason to protect /usr? $HOME should be protected too? I 
dunno, I'm not liking the logic here.


I'm not enthusiastic about immutables, but am willing to see more about 
KDE Linux before I outright reject the possibility of running one.

I would consider recommending them to less technically savvy users.


(Now, having written all that prior to Doug's post, I need to go back 
and watch his presentation.)

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kwlug.org/pipermail/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org/attachments/20260622/5ebf121d/attachment-0001.htm>