bsergay

Can I bother you to share any resources on the differences between the atomicity between fedora and open suse?

It's genuinely hard to point towards an exhaustive source on the matter. Perhaps related to the fact that there are continuous advancements and developments going on that make it hard for something to not feel outdated very quickly. But, basically, Fedora Atomic heavily relies on OSTree/libostree for accomplishing its 'immutability'/atomicity. While, on the other hand, openSUSE MicroOS utilizes Btrfs snapshots (primarily) instead. Some implications are:

• Fedora Atomic is able to track changes. openSUSE MicroOS currently does not. Though, this feature is planned.
• Fedora Atomic is (pretty) reproducible; even if after dozens of transactions one returns back to an earlier state without tracing back. This is possible through the use of layers instead of directly changing the base system. This is something Btrfs snapshots can't do currently. Therefore, there's nothing that indicates that openSUSE MicroOS is able to do the same. Though it can be reproducible in its own way.
• Git-like features of OSTree/libostree allows branching (and other git-like features) when managing deployments. Concept of branching is alien for Btrfs Snapshots.
• Fedora Atomic basically offers built-in factory reset. For openSUSE MictroOS, this is planned.
• Like git, Fedora Atomic can rebase. In practice, this allows it to change drastically through a single reboot without actually reinstalling. This is used to rebase to a new major version (from Fedora 39 to Fedora 40), but even more impressive is to change from Silverblue (GNOME) to Kinoite (KDE Plasma) to Sway to Budgie etc. And all of this, without (most of) the cruft associated with these changes. Heck, you could even rebase to uBlue images or any others you fancy. This concept of rebasing is not found on openSUSE MicroOS.
• In theory, Btrfs snapshots should be more flexible in regards to applying changes we may find on traditional distros. But, unfortunately, because Fedora Atomic is further along its development, we don't actually notice this. (The upcoming update related to bootable containers for Fedora Atomic doesn't make it any easier for openSUSE MicrOS to be more flexible anyways.)
• The upcoming update related to bootable containers also allows Fedora Atomic to be (relatively) declarative and hence; less state. This concept is also currently absent on openSUSE MicroOS.

Ongoing developments may alter the above list significantly. It's even entirely possible that all features mentioned above will be found on both distros in the upcoming years. However, vision and scope are perhaps decisive when it comes to making any predictions regarding the future. We haven't gone over those yet... Going over those is out of scope for what this comment intends :P .

Search engines suck these days

Can't agree more.

You're welcome!

xD, it's done by typing three times "-" or "*" next to each other with nothing else on the line itself and the lines before and after. So to illustrate it with quotation marks:

"(Empty)"

"---" (or "***")

"(Empty)"

Note that in the above example, i had to leave another empty line in between the lines. So it's not exactly correct. Unfortunately, without a break line, I can't even illustrate it. So, this is done from necessity. Though, it means that technically, the stars below were one "/" removed from becoming a line.

/***

The existence of both is justified for their unique merits. However, I'd argue that the 'immutable'/atomic model makes more sense for a system that's dedicated towards gaming.

For a general daily driver, it all comes down to your specific needs. If Bazzite satisfies those, I'd argue it's the safer pick. However, if (for some reason) Bazzite falls short^[1]^, then go for Nobara instead.

There's a lot more to it than this, but I kept it short for the sake of brevity.

1. Honestly, there's only very little that Bazzite actually can't do. Though its unique workflow might require some adjusting. Regardless, if you go for Bazzite, ensure to take a proper look at its documentation.

Thanks!

It has been my pleasure.

Well I think that the atomic distros, especially desktops, have a big future

So do I. Though, I think they'll have a big future across the board.

I hope openSUSE gets to keep working on those.

Yup, me too. I trust that at least openSUSE Aeon will thrive (through Richard Brown). And hopefully that will eventually result into a healthy ecosystem in which more 'immutable'/atomic spins (with other desktop environments) will follow.

I might try Kalpa actually. Seems like the openSUSE version of Fedora Kinoite?

Technically, it's indeed openSUSE's take on an 'immutable'/atomic distro with KDE Plasma. However, there's a big difference in how much development it enjoins.

• For Fedora Atomic, all the spins are equal~ish in regards to their development. Like, it's not possible to point to a difference that goes beyond polish.
• On the other hand, openSUSE Aeon is in RC3 while openSUSE Kalpa hasn't left Alpha. This is not surprising when considering that multiple people work on openSUSE Aeon and only a single developer works on openSUSE Kalpa.

There's also a difference in how 'immutability'/atomicity works on Fedora Atomic vs openSUSE MicroOS. Without even going over the implications thereof. But that's out of scope for what's intended for this comment.

Does Gentoo still have use flags?

AFAIK, it still does. Though I wonder if it still comes with a lot of added complexity that you note. I've yet to give Gentoo a good try. Therefore, you could be totally right with the following:

I’d be surprised if gentoo was considered stable, if you make heavy use of use-flag

Regardless, it was an informative talk. Thank you for that! Have a nice day 😊!

As expected. At this point, consider following a video tutorial if you haven't yet.

At some point, the installation should ask you the driver on which it should be installed and also how the driver should be interacted with; i.e full wipe and then installation or only specified partitions. You specified elsewhere that you don't intend to dual-boot. Hence, selecting the correct drive and following the instructions for full wipe + installation (which should be regular/default installation) should have been sufficient.

Yeah, it's pretty niche. Redcore Linux is definitely (relatively speaking) more mainstream.

I suppose it's cool. MocaccionoOS is where my interests lie within the Gentoo derivatives. Granted, I'm a sucker for 'immutable' distros.

phew long answer.

Yeah, lol. My apologies 😅. Thank for reading through all of that 😊!

I just wrote from my limited experience. I never had something break on Fedora. I just updated a system from 35 to 41. The stuff that broke was something I compiled against old dependencies. (That’s why I didn’t update so long)

Interesting. Within the last two years, we had issues with mesa and codecs; some devices couldn't even boot up. I'm glad to hear you haven't had any issues though. BTW, for the sake of completeness, I've been daily driving Fedora Silverblue for over two years now*.

I just updated a system from 35 to 41.

LOL, my first version was version 35; which is a curious coincidence. With 41, do you mean Rawhide?

My Gentoo experience is >15y old.

15 years is a long time 😅. Do you recall if Gentoo had dependency resolution back then?

Together with all the other information you've shared, it's not entirely clear why it has failed; at least to me.

If you're not married/tied to the installation of Debian, may I suggest installing Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Tuxedo OS or Zorin OS instead?

There are of course many other distros you could choose, but the earlier mentioned ones are 'stable' like Debian is. I thought that perhaps it was what attracted you towards Debian in the first place.

Could you describe what has transpired before? Have you actually installed Debian? Are you still trying to boot into the install medium?

Perhaps sharing device specs might be helpful.