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10k added users since last post. Here are upstream Fedora numbers only
I had been using Aurora-dx, but I also like to play games, so I re-based to Bazzite-dx when it became available.
Call me a Luddite, but I want to retain control over my updates and upgrades. I fear the day that Fedora becomes all atomic, all the time, which I can't help but think is in the cards
My son also picked Bazzite, which I hadn't heard of before. Unfortunately he didn't like it and it back to Windows again.
Go Bazzite, there has been a lot of talk about Bazzite lately, also on YouTube many have been reviewing it, like JayzTwoCents had a feature about it, which probably helped.
I haven't tried it myself, but it's great to see that it's still possible to shake up the Linux community with a new approach.
Congratulations and best of wishes. 👍 🎈
Gaming will always take the lead—gamers are usually quick to chase the newest and shiniest things. Bluefin/Aurora adoption takes a bit longer because developers have to adjust their workflows, and there’s still this odd stigma around atomics. People assume you “can’t do things” on an atomic distro that you can on a traditional one, when in reality it’s mostly the same—just a slightly different approach in certain areas. Like with Nix, once it clicks, the pros far outweigh the cons. Personally, Bluefin has made me a more organised and efficient developer.
I can't upload the images for some reason but here's the current numbers for the ublue spins
Bluefin/Aurora adoption takes a bit longer because developers have to adjust their workflows, and there’s still this odd stigma around atomics.
Bluefin maintainer here, our target audience are container people, not people who want to adjust their workflows. The people we cater to don't have an opinion on "atomics" because no one's ever heard of that term. They've heard of docker or podman though.
once it clicks, the pros far outweigh the cons
I would love to hear a pro about atomic distros that isn't some vague platitude about security or stability. I have zero security/stability problems on my 'normal' Fedora.
As someone who has steadfastly avoided atomic distros because it sounds like an arseache and the last thing I want is more busywork. Convince me to switch!
Security isn’t really one, but saying don’t mention stability is proving the point—Fedora goes to ten, but Silverblue goes to eleven. That’s like saying, “tell me why Arch is good without mentioning the up-to-date packages.”
For Bluefin, it had everything I was doing with Fedora and then Silverblue OTB, and then some things I didn’t realize I needed. Yes, you can run a container-focused workflow in Fedora, but atomics keep you focused on good practices. With Fedora, my system became a bit of a dependency hell with Python and npm packages; now I have a container per project that can either have its own home dir or just seamlessly integrate with my main system.
I’m the whole IT and dev department for my company, so I would often have dedicated VMs etc. for each focus. Now everything is just seamlessly in my system.
It’s a bit of a reset for sure what isn't, but once it’s done you know you can just hit the power button and everything is there ready to go.
I’m getting into rolling my own spin at the moment for our thin clients as they only have 16GB of space, and that’s been really easy to set up. Now I have a trimmed-down Bluefin that comes packaged with Remmina, and I can deploy updates just by updating some files on GitHub. It's really not more busywork, pretty much the opposite for me, my root is basically /var and anything lower level I don't really need to be messing about with on a workstaiton. I have all my tools most out of the box. I have every language package esp elixir thanks to brew have you tried setting up iex on Ubuntu it's dog egg. On bluefin, I just brew install elixir.
Thank you for the informative response! :)
saying don’t mention stability is proving the point
My point is that stability is already 100% fine for me now. So saying you'll make my already rock-solid experience somehow more stable is meaningless. As a power user for over a decade, I've personally experienced zero issues where I wished Fedora was somehow more stable. It's like telling me that Silverblue connects to the internet - Like yes, I already have that.
From what I'm reading, it sounds like the singular 'pro' is being forced to do cleaner, more self-contained practices. I can totally see how that would be helpful for some people. But personally, I would genuinely despise that kind of restriction.
I'm admittedly the kind of person who hates being forced to do the 'best practice' thing. I'm genuinely happy that my Linux distro will me rm -rf the root partition (with an 'are you sure' prompt these days :) ). I'm happy that if I really want to purge the kernel package with dnf, then I can. I want (and kind of need) my freedom to make a mess, if I tell Linux to jump, it will goddamn jump, even if it's a bad practice technically terrible decision. I have zero interest in going all around the houses just to do it the technically correct (and sometimes less-effort-in-the-long-run) way. If I ever want a clean plate, I can still spin up a container just like you're saying.
So I get the feeling that atomic is very much not for me, which is what I suspected :) Very glad that people like yourself find it an improvement, that's what flavours are for!
I don't think I've even tinkered with Bazzite since installing it. It just works. You do have to get used to container workflows and using flathub but its a marginal amount of overhead for improved security. Bonus points: you can lazy install lots of apps with distrobox, for example you can install .deb files, .rpm files, pull from the AUR, its no biggy, and its all preconfigured and easy to setup.
It's also nice to be able to rebase your distro whenever you want to try out different spins and features, makes inter-fedora atomic distro hopping easy without destroying your configs.
Thanks for the response, though up to this sentence I'm hearing extra busywork and slow/annoying containerising, in exchange for vague security platitude and a tool which I can already use.
It's also nice to be able to rebase your distro whenever you want to try out different spins and features, makes inter-fedora atomic distro hopping easy without destroying your configs.
I'm interested by this. Is there a uniqueness to Atomic setups such that you can (more easily) keep your user partition, GNOME configs, etc. and swap out the Fedora distro underneath?
Yep, I can for example rebase from Bazzite to Secureblue and keep all of my configs intact for say, KDE. So if a project goes fubar you aren't out of luck and need to reinstall and reconfig linux, its trivial to rebase/"swap distro", its a single command that looks like this
rpm-ostree rebase ostree-image-signed:docker://ghcr.io/ublue-os/bazzite-dx-nvidia:stable
All programs, files, configs, etc are intact in your home directory. I've swapped between user created spins for different DEs like Cosmic and so on, whats cool is its all preconfigured to run well under bazzites kernel. Image based upgrades are also very nice, theres inevitably config drift that messes with performance or updates can break your setup on other distros, image based means the devs tweak every interaction and push it all to you with the least effort possible on your part.
Hey, I'm one of those! Started using Bazzite in July, have absolutely fallen in love. My whole gaming library is available, which has been a real first for me with Linux.
I will hypothesize why:
Bazzite is the Trendy Distro Of The Month, like Peppermint or Endeavor or Nobara or a frillion others. CachyOS is apparently next. Nearly constantly, you'll hear about some trendy new distro which is a fork of Ubuntu or Fedora or Arch that has a feature or two targeted at newcomers or gamers, and for awhile it gets heavily recommended on Reddit or Lemmy, then you stop hearing about it forever as the rest of the ecosystem adopts that feature or fixes the thing that feature was meant to be worked around, and then the cycle repeats.
Bazzite is targeted toward gamers, it emphasizes a solid onboarding experience with a configurator to choose/build your install media based on what you want to do with it, do you want a handheld or home theater experience or a keyboard and mouse desktop? Do you want it to boot to SteamOS or to a DE? Which DE? What hardware do you have? So their gimmick is to steer users through the initital config and setup process. Which as gimmicks go, that one is pretty solid.
MEANWHILE
Fedora's Atomic editions have no gimmicks at all. You have to independently learn that immutable distros exist, independently decide you want that, and then go hunting on their website through their godforsaken marketing wank to find it.
Fedora likes their bullshit branding. You go to their website, and there are big buttons for Fedora Workstation right next to Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop. "Workstation" does not mention that it's just the Gnome version. You have to stroll further down, past server, IoT and "Core" versions, to a section that looks visually different labeled "More Fedora Options" including Atomic and Spins. You're a new Linux user, you've just used the OS that came with your computer your whole life, explain to me what the difference between Core and Atomic is and why you should choose one over the other?
The Atomic versions, which is kind of a synonym for "immutable", you click on that, and you're presented with five options: Fedora Silverblue, Fedora Kinoite, Fedora Sway Atomic, Fedora Budgie Atomic, and Fedora Cosmic Atomic Nowhere in its name or description does Silverblue mention that it's the Gnome desktop one. Kinoite starts with a K and also mentions in the description it's the KDE atomic version. Also, "kinoite" is a godawful word, they should have gone with Kyanite instead, which is a different blue crystal. Or they should have just called it KDE Atomic or Plasma Atomic. The others just put the DE's name in the title LIKE A NORMAL PERSON, ROWAN.
I am wary about invoking Apple here, but say what you will about the company, there's a lot of value in a braindead setup process. Many, many users just want something that just works - it was literally something I asked for when Linux was recommended to me (knowing some hate Ubuntu, I'll out myself: using Ubuntu Budgie - setup was super simple. I guess there must be demand for that niche in the broader Linux community, so that's a very smart move by Bazzite.
Bazzite just works when it's a regular desktop. The HTPC (with steam game mode) one has a major issue that I don't see them even addressing, it doesn't suspend. It goes into a permanent black screen and the PC is still running. Nothing revives it beside a forced reboot. I reported it to their GitHub and got nothing really. I thought it was my hardware, but I had a friend of mine bring his whole tower to my house, we installed bazzite and it did the same thing. His tower has all new AMD hardware. On my laptop, bazzite is solid as hell. Works with zero issues.
Very fun, I've been rocking Fedora workstation for years. If Fedora could take off as the gaming distro that'd be great, I'll get even more up-to-date top-notch graphics drivers without having to change distros
I use Aurora DX for my work box! But yeah all my personal PCs run Bazzite now.