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

[Ron Singh]

You know, seeing this discussion, I need to go watch your presentation. I
see your point on atomic vs immutable and yeah, so many folks are referring
to Atomic offerings as "immutable"...Fedora.

I have a case where a true immutable OS with a thin desktop(Xfce/Mate/LXDE)
would be cool to try out.
I currently have 2 laptops runing Debian 12,  Firefox-ESR, LibreCalc,
LibreWrite, Leafpad, that's it.
These 2 laptops go to 5 websites that are not Java-happy, just tables of
numbers really.
Staid, very static use case.
I tried using the Distrowatch search filters, but could not narrow down to
a proper offering.

I suppose I could simply turn off all updates and my laptops would be
"immutable", heh.

I cannot deal with the Gnome desktop, that one makes me hurl.
I do want to try an *actual* immutable offering with a humane DE, parked on
a spare machine doing the work I do on these 2 laptops running Debian 12
with Xfce/Firefox-ESR with Java turned off and most of the time off-line
with me just beating away at the keyboard. I just don't know what to turn
to,

*Ron S.*


On Mon, Jun 22, 2026 at 4:38 PM Doug Moen <doug at moens.org> wrote:

> Since this is probably aimed at me, I'll respond.
>
> Most of this article is bullshit. The blogger claims that Fedora Atomic
> Desktop, which I gave a KWLUG presentation on, is immutable. It is not
> immutable. A root user can arbitrarily mutate the root file system. The
> system also does not force you to run all applications in containers. You
> can install packages into /usr, just as you can in non-atomic Fedora.
>
> During my presentation on Fedora Atomic Desktop, I went to some effort to
> distinguish immutable operating systems from atomic ones. I explained why I
> don't want an immutable desktop, but that the atomic transactional updates
> of Fedora Atomic interest me.
>
> Fedora Atomic Desktop is atomic. This means system updates are applied
> atomically and transactionally. Ditto for system changes that I perform
> locally as an administrator.
>
> Atomic update means that you accumulate a set of changes to the base
> system in a transaction, then you make an explicit gesture to cause those
> changes to go live. The gesture is either a shell command (rpm-ostree
> apply-live), or you reboot the system.
>
> The reasons I would give for not recommending Fedora Atomic Desktop to
> KWLUG members are primarily in the unfamiliarity of the system
> administration UI, which IMO is less polished than I would like, and
> introduces some friction. Another issue is that the Fedora RPM repository
> seems to have significantly fewer packages than the Debian repository which
> many people here are used to. I'm still running my atomic desktop, but I
> continue to consider it to be an experiment.
>
> The blogger does give some reasons for not wanting to run an immutable
> distro, which overlap with my reasons. But he is confused about what
> "immutable" means. In an immutable distro, it is impossible for a local
> user with root to make changes to the root file system. This improves
> security, because if malware attains root, there is far less damage that it
> can cause. There are actually immutable Linux distros for the server and
> embedded market. The blogger correctly observes that embedded systems are a
> good fit for immutable Linux.
>
> Much of this rant is actually an attack on flatpak. I'll note that people
> use flatpak on every Linux desktop distro, not just the atomic ones. I'm
> running the KDE variant of Fedora Atomic Desktop (Kinoite), and there were
> a handful of KDE flatpak apps preinstalled, although nothing that I use.
> This may have more to do with KDE than it does with Fedora Atomic. Firefox
> is preinstalled as a regular Fedora package. I do use flatpak when it is
> the most convenient option for installing a GUI app, and this is unrelated
> to whether I'm on my Mint system or on my Kinoite system.
>
> On Kinoite, you by default install flatpaks from a Fedora-controlled
> repository. But flathub is also available as an option, with a little extra
> work. The difference is that flathub gives upstream developers control over
> how their software is packaged, while with the Fedora flatpak repository,
> it is Fedora that is in control. This idiot blogger seems to think that you
> are forced to install everything from flathub:
>
> Immutable desktops, however, force you to rely on containerized app stores
> (Flatpak or Snap). This shifts your trust from a central team to thousands
> of random, unvetted package maintainers.
>
>
> Doug.
>
> On Mon, Jun 22, 2026, at 11:19 AM, William Park via kwlug-disc wrote:
>
> Since lots of people here are going ga-ga over immutable os...
>
> https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=showheadline&story=20206
>
> https://blog.woralelandia.com/ten-1-reasons-to-avoid-the-immutable-desktop-en.html
>
>
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