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Upstream images vs bazzite: https://github.com/ublue-os/countme/blob/main/growth_upstream_with_bazzite.svg
My prediction: bazzite may have more installs than Fedora KDE by the end of the year.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
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I still miss the advantages for these cases.
I can understand the kid example, but I feel that's easily solved by not giving them root access.
Setup the system and install whatever media software. Update it every once in a while or setup auto updates. I do not see any difference between traditional os and immutable. You're likely not modifying any system files anyway.
The producing company controls software and updates, it should be immutable anyway as users likely do not have root access. Were users to have root access this may make sense. I'm not sure, maybe the immutability would make updates easier for the company?
Are they really going to brick their system? That would require opening the terminal. But I mean, fair.
What I do not understand is why there are users swearing by bazzite and other immutable distributions. These examples you make is basically for users who just do the most basic operations with their systems. Fair, if this makes it easier for non technical people to use Linux I'm all for it. What I do not understand is why technically adept people are so excited for these kinds of distributions?
I control a htpc with an Xbox gamepad. Bazzite I don't even think about updates, it just happens instead of saying "should probably update" and unplugging my nose and keyboard from my other PC. Or leaving mouse and keyboard sit on the floor in front of my tv cabinet.
Most handheld suppliers are shipping windows, replacing it with an immutable system is definitely the way to go. On screen keyboards are play I guess, but even my experience just doing a regular distro on a tablet it was a hassle.
Look, I'm not going into detail on this anymore. But I want to say I'm surprised by how much people are pushing back. "Oh instead of using bazzite, you could setup rsync to do an a/b switch with your server if something goes wrong". (Elsewhere in these comments).
I just didn't think it would be so much for people to accept there are use cases for why people do things differently to them.
I'm happy there are use cases. Another person told me to look at rpm-ostree and it looks pretty nice.
But for what you're saying I do not understand: how is an immutable server better than a normal one. You can setup auto updates; I do not see how rsync would help with that.
I imagine safe backup is nice, but for that you still have to connect keyboard and mouse on an htpc. Possibly not into a managed server, but there you have other layers of resilience anyway.
Sure, you likely have to do less things to fix it; but at this point the annoyance of having to move the keyboard to another room is much greater than 15 minutes figuring out what is wrong and how to fix it.,
Sorry, I'm not pushing back because I dislike the idea. I've been introduced to the rpm-ostree and It seems a good idea to me, maybe there's more nice ideas to find out.
Root vs non-root is, in a nutshell, a tangled mess with millions of opportunities for "oops, didn't think of that" situations: https://www.cve.org/downloads
Immutable keeps the legacy system confituration basically unchanged, but also restores it "from ROM" every time you power on. (not real ROM, but effectively.) In an immutable system, the attack surface is dramatically reduced, and much more diverse among systems than with a mutable OS.
I reckon this must be true. However I do not see this as a reason for wide adoption of immutable systems. I guess that is a fairly valid use case.
I'd like to understand why some users are enthusiastic about bazzite. As of now I understood two of the reasons:
However I do not understand why these two things make their users so enthusiastic. It's two things you rarely worry about when using a computer. They are indeed important, but in my opinion not much of a problem in modern distributions.
In the other hand you have to install everything through flatpak, which is something which would really get to my nerves.
I understand there are some good advantages, I just fail to understand which ones those are.
It's actually quite a lot more than a bit more secure. Think of it as the difference between traversing no-mans land on a bicycle (current systems) vs in an armored personnel carrier with armor thick enough to stop EVERYTHING that the other side can throw at it. Sure, you could just open the door of the APC and take a hit, but if you don't do that, you're pretty safe.
Are you trying to think logically about that question? Because that would be a huge mistake.
Yeah, not my favorite either. A BIG part of why I'm not loving the majority of the immutable systems I have investigated is because they all seem to heavily lean on tech like flatpak, snaps, etc. and there are valid logical reasons for that, but I'd really rather not go there...
It requires literally zero work from me to maintain, that's why I'm enthusiastic and want the project to do well. Saying mutable Linux is zero work is dead wrong. And if you do put work into your system, it actually sticks and doesn't decide to explode one day over it.
Most of the work in my system is installing software and changing configurations of said software. The rest is using the software. What is the difference in the amount of work here? I guess on an immutable system you will also be installing software and modifying configuration files.
In my system something can malfunction to which I have to change some system configurations: for example past week I had to change some systemd-resolved configuration because on a specific interface it was using some random DNS I didn't want it to use. I assume this work will also have to be done on an immutable system.
What is the work which you have to do on a normal distribution and not on an immutable system?
How long have you been using Linux? I've been using it since around 2004. About every 2 years a major upgrade would make my computer kill itself and I'd have to manually repair it over the course of a weekend. I do security software work and often to make that suite of software (some of it not niche like vpn apps) function you must alter some system files. Layering these apps over the system solves the problem.
I've been using Linux as my main OS for about 15 years. I had my system break down in other occasions in the same way you describe. It is a nuisance, but luckily it never was a major problem. I believe once I had to reinstall the system, I was very happy to have a separate home partition.
I'm not sure what you mean by layering apps over the system, that could be interesting. Especially because I imagine something like a VPN needs root access. Is it possible to install a binary as a service with root access if that is not available in the repositories? I do for example have to use a quite obscure VPN protocol.
Yeah. You can layer it like a git repo fork layers it's changes. If something breaks you can just clear that forked branch and redo it. Takes like 2 minutes to fix.
So yeah you can alter system files in a very safe way and can easily revert changes if you don't like the result. rpm-ostree reset is the command that clears all changes and resets to master. I'd recommend looking at the rpm-ostree docs for a full explanation of functionality
Seems like a nice idea, I'll have a look.
It's nice to have an undo button on terminal shenanigans!
Zero-maintenance and upgrades.
You're overthinking it, there's no reason to care if the root disk is readable or not. If it updates reliably out of the box there's no reason to touch it.
You don't need to open a terminal to brick a traditional linux system they tend to do that on their own.
I can't speak for "immutable distributions" but for bazzite it's to ensure working upgrades.
I'm technically adept at Linux I expect software to work. (system upgrades should work, app installation shouldn't break the PC, etc.)
So, the main advantage is that it is ensured that an update will not brick the system?
That is pretty neat, but it's been quite a while since the last update which broke something for me. And that was either on arch of switching Debian version.
I reckon it is nice that you ensure updates won't break anything, even though I'm not sure that can be ensured, in most cases I had it was the repo itself which made mistakes in packaging the software who broke it and I don't think there's solution for that. Either way, I myself do not see this such an advantage as to displace the pain of having everything run in flatpak.
Updates can be ensured and broken repositories go away entirely that's the entire point. I don't think it's "nice" I would consider that a basic feature in Linux. If you like Linux your way then that doesn't go away.
What do you mean? How can it be possible to eliminate a packaging error? If the packaging team makes a mistake you get a broken software, regardless whether you download a binary through a repository or through flatpak.
Because the image never gets built if there's a packaging error, so the user never ends up on a broken image. A broken package never makes it to the end. If it's broken the user just doesn't get an image until the package is fixed and then they get a new image.
I had broken packages getting installed before. They would compile correctly but certain functionality would not work due to how it was packaged. This is not something which can be prevented, I do not believe it is possible.
It is 100% possible and people have been doing it for years. If the package is broken the final product is never built, it's impossible to ship it to the end user since it's one whole complete image.
I am afraid we are talking about different things. Recently I had to report a broken package to a repository. The problem was that they mapped a path to the incorrect directory.
The software compiled and worked correctly, but some specific functionality which needed to read data from that directory was broken.
I do not think there is a way to prevent this kind of errors.
I am thinking that they wouldn't define that as a broken package, since I would consider that a bug that would need to be addressed in the next release. I would expect a broken package not to be able to run rather than simply to have a broken function.
In normal repos they also test their packages. I do not think it is possible in any distribution repo to ship a binary which did not compile. Dynamic library linking may have some problems I guess, but unless you're using arch that is generally never a real problem with package manager installations. I have never got a package which plain does not run.
I have had a couple of instances where I updated a package through apt and those updates resulted in a binary which crashed on launch or a configuration/database error that prevented the binary from being launched, so it does happen.
The fix was relatively simple and I had it working again in minutes, but I think it's still worth consideration as a potential point of friction, especially for users who don't have the ability or desire to fix their own systems.
As an aside, I think you should want to know how to fix your system, but I don't think it's unreasonable for non-tech people to be able to install an OS they don't have to periodically tinker with to get installed programs to launch correctly every time with no fuss.
For so many people, tinkering is like washing the dishes and they simply don't want to do it; an immutable system is like the dishwasher of tech purely in the sense that using it means that less effort is required from the user. I wouldn't expect my non-tech wife to think Linux From Scratch would be a fun learning project (like I do), we are all different.
Hope this comment isn't too tangential, I'm trying as a person to be less rigid in my thinking about how people do things because I think it holds us back and, really, it's a testament to the value of open source software that we have all of these options available. I wouldn't want there only to be one way to run Linux.