3w ago

Fedora Atomic is the bomb

I've been feeling gushy about my setup lately, I think I've finally found my home on Linux. For decades I've distrohopped each year and never was really happy with it all, but Fedora Atomic has changed that.

Some things I can do with Fedora Atomic that I cannot do with other Linux distros:

I can rebase to Bazzite for gaming performance when I feel like having a long gaming session.
I can rebase to Secureblue when I think I will not be gaming and would prefer a more secure linux setup.
I can update my system and not have to worry about special instructions, its extremely stable. Many times in the past, running a small ma-and-pa distro with most things pre-configed for performance would end with it breaking after a couple of major updates. This isn't true for configs like Bazzite and Secureblue, they are remarkably stable across many major updates due to how rpm-ostree functions.
Distrobox and Flatpak are more than enough at this stage for most programs and they help you avoid making too many alterations to the base image, greatly speeding up the swaps between major images.

The kicker? Your user configs and home files are never changed when you 'image hop'. It always feels like you just installed a fresh distro whenever you upgrade, and the performance benefits are noticeable. You don't have to tinker and do the same changes over and over, its all handled for you by rpm-ostree.

10/10 this is the future of Linux. I hope for a future where I can rebase entire Linux distros while maintaining my configs with one simple command, but for now, Fedora Atomic is fantastic.

The downsides:

There is one major downside, and its that all of your system files are read-only. Personally, I've found a dozen ways to get around this, it requires thinking inside the Distrobox. It is a notable issue for many people, though. This means you cannot make specific tweaks without making a whole new image for yourself. Though in practice, I have found the ecosystem has grown a lot. Other people have already made the best tweaks available for you with only a few simple commands.
Rpm-ostree also is slow to update because its essentially building a whole git tree to make sure your updates never break and are as stable as possible. You also have to reboot each time you alter it, which can be annoying, but if you stick to flatpaks and distroboxes, this issue is mitigated significantly.

74 comments

10/10 this is the future of Linux.
I hope it's a future of Linux, not the future. I'm not a fan of atomic distros, mostly because if their reliance on flatpak and the like
- Flatpaks are better for security though. Containerization is a necessity for any serious device connecting to the internet.
  Linux users got way too confortable giving any obscure package they found on AUR root access to their entire device, lol.
  
  And that's why it's good that it's an option! I just don't want it to become the only option
  
  Why are you installing malware in the first place?
- My biggest disadvantage of atomic distros is flatpak reliance too. I hate how bad the terminal interface for managing/running flatpaks is. But I still hope that this will improve in the future.
  
  I feel like flatseal mitigates this a bit but I do agree that flatpaks have room to improve. Particularly with making sure flatpaks are verified against the open source projects they are made from.
  
  Flatpaks really aren't for terminal stuff, it at least wasn't the intention
- I agree. Fundamentally, you still need good distros to plug into distrobox to make swapping between immutable systems quicker. In general I feel like running Fedora Atomic has really opened my eyes to the possibilities of using distrobox + boxbuddy to get quick and easy installs from AUR or something and saving annoying-to-make configs in a backup file somewhere.
  Atomic is also absolutely fantastic for throwing on an old computer that you use rarely. The update will not break after letting it sit for so long without them.
- What about NixOS? It seems to be doing something very different from most distros. I used it briefly and it was a refreshing experience to just update the config file to add and remove programs, I know that a lot of people share their configs and it makes it easy to keep programs consistent from different installs. I would have installed it on this laptop if the installer wasn't giving me so many issues, so I ended up with MXLinux instead, but I still look on my NixOS days fondly.
  
  It's on my list to try!
  
  Having tried NixOS, I gotta say the ability to quickly restore everything from a single config (its main premise) is overrated when it comes to home systems. Invaluable for production environments, though.
  The rest can be done on any other Linux, and it would probably be preferred by most.
- I think this approach is going to fair the best for mainstream adoption (i.e. Windows refugees). So I would agree that the "future" is going to involve immutable distros as a large, possibly majority, of all Linux installations.
  
  Agreed - for someone moving from Windows / Mac, the immutables and flatpak are the way to go now. It's going to take a bit for the Ubuntu / Mint crowd to change their song. Bazzite in particular is a huge olive branch to the gamers. Even for someone who is "tinkering" learning distrobox and/or flatseal can enable most things you would ever want to tinker with on a desktop. If you are really developing something, chances are that you use containers or a VM anyway.
  I have to concur on flatpaks though: they have room for improvement. More validation / trust is needed, and the options are wide open. For non-technical users, the *surety and security *isn't necessarily on par with the app stores of Microsoft, Apple & Google - though the experience is getting there.
  
  Strong disagree on my part.
  Immutable distros work differently from traditional ones, for which most guides and manuals were written. This is somewhat painful even for those coming from other distros, and it's gonna be a nightmare for those coming from another OS. They didn't even familiarize themselves with Linux yet, and people want them to run flatpaks, distroboxes and work with rpm-ostree or its alternatives. It's like learning to fly a plane by saving a Boeing-737 on a crash course.
  Immutable options are not for newbie users, at least not in the foreseeable future.

Sounds like a good way to do Linux phones.
- Honestly, I haven't considered this before but it sounds like a great idea.
- An image-based system would be the bare minimum to achieve basic security, but there would still be so many security issues compared to Android and iOS, that I don’t think Linux phones are worth putting time and development effort into.
  AOSP is a fantastic base for open source mobile systems. The FOSS mobile development community should rather shift its focus to AOSP, develop a good understanding of it and get familiar with the code, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with mobile Linux distros.
  
  We really cannot rely on aosp because while google in control of source code and not take any contribution to code we have in relastic case "u permitted to read code and clone " and back feedback and as result we will have aosp as google wish it only for their own profits and theirs views how they see it.I am not even talking that they not use any enforce policy that manufactures cannot lock bootloader without ability to unlock
  
  The vast majority of the FOSS mobile development community has already shifted to AOSP. "Proper" mobile Linux has never been a serious thing except maybe during the Nokia N900 era (It was released in 2009.). So I don't really get what you're trying to say with that statement. Also the main thing that's lacking for mobile Linux are the drivers and hardware*, so there it does not really matter whether it's Linux "proper" or Android because the low level stuff is pretty much the same.
  *With hardware I mean that the devices are not designed to be tinkered with unless it's Pinephone like Linux phone, where the problem are said drivers.
- This is the least of the issues that Linux phones are facing though. It's mostly the drivers that are lacking. Linux phones are also one of the areas where you actually don't want flatpak and docker bloating up your system with duplicated dependencies because you have limited storage.

Distrobox and Flatpak are more than enough at this stage for most programs
Maybe for you, but personally I could never get by with only that. I have zero interest in atomic distros. To me they look like an inferior version of NixOS, which I have yet to fully wrap my head around. Until then I'll stick to Arch (BTW)
- Same here. I have and will always periodically reinstall no matter which OS I happen to be using. Arch is the only distro that keeps me coming back because installation and setup is such an active process. Every time around I learn something new and get more effecient at the process, which is so much more rewarding than filling a few boxes and waiting on a progress bar as is the case with most distros I have experienced.
  
  I think it comes down to priorities.
  Whenever someone mentions Arch the pro arguments are always something in the lines of "I get to tinker", "I learn so much reading the documentation", "We are first in line to receive packages", "We have packages that no other distro has".
  As someone who uses a laptop for work, all of those things sound like a nightmare. If I were a student with spare time on my hands, maybe I'd value such a distro more.
  But as it stands, stability without compromising modern technology (I wouldn't use a Debian-based x11 distro) and minimal options to tinker with, is my sweet spot. Because I need my laptop to have it's security updates on time, and just work.

I really like it as well. I did three major version upgrades so far and they have been flawless. I also really like Flatpak, finally a way of easily installing something on Linux without breaking half of the system because the application you wanted to install uses libfoo 2.0 and not libfoo 1.9.9-patch-1337. With my atomic desktop applications that worked yesterday also work today. Things don't randomly break all the time.
The future of Fedora Atomic also looks exciting; Timothée Ravier is working on sysexts which are a way of installing applications without ostree layering. I could remove most of my ostree layered packages with that.
- Oooh, didn't know about that. Very exciting
- did three major version upgrades so far and they have been flawless.
  To be fair, I've upgraded normal Fedora for like.. 8-10 versions in a row maybe, and never had a problem
  
  The biggest issue I've had is tweaks causing instability over time. I also have had some issues where I was updating a debian install that hadn't been updated in 3 years and it broke and would require tweaking to fix (why do this when I can just load a new immutable install and fix it for good?). I have enough computers laying around that I'd really rather it work when I want to as a sure thing. So far my testing with immutable distros has been stellar, I'll let everyone know if my ostree tweaks and updates don't load in 3 years, lol.
  I think this is a big enough problem that even the Fedora team considered it an issue and therefore pushed out Fedora Atomic.

It's not the future... it's the present for all users running mobile linux-based computing devices called Android smartphones. The paradigm is very similar to Atomic distros. As for what the future might hold for linux, that remains to be seen.
The Atomic UX has proven very popular with mainstream users running by Steam Deck and similar devices as running Bazzite. They may not be aware how they are built, they just know it just works and that's all they need.
As for the maintainers, containerized development removes a lot of development time, provided they have experience in cloud native development environments. Old school developers get annoyed by this constraints.
All in all, it's just another alternative, don't diss it out of fear it might take over the Linux scene... let others have what they need, provided by Linux and open source software.

I appreciate your mentioning the downside. I am way too much of a tinkerer for a read-only root to be acceptable for me, but I'm glad you found something you like.
- eh, it's not all root... /etc and /var are RW
  
  Oh, nice!

I think i'll be heading back to Pop!_OS for my main rig. While i like Bazzite, i can't get VR to function on it, or get my 5.1 surround sound system working. I think it's great for a hand held, but not for a main rig.
- You might want to look at the ujust commands on Bazzite, they have some options for setting up surround sound and VR I'm quite sure. I have a pretty simple setup personally so I've never used those things.

I've updated enterprise Linux machines automatically for decades. The score is tens of thousands of upgrades, 1 problem I caused, 1 packaging glitch.
You don't need to take on risky drek like flatpaks to get there. It's one command in enterprise and you're kinda done forever.
Glad you like your setup. I hope it works for you and you never learn the risks of flatpaks.
- Care to elaborate on 'the risks of flatpak'. If you are refering to the practice of people using unofficial flatpaks: Yes I think that poses a certain risk because you are adding an additional party to your threat model.
- I was gonna comment this, decided not to, then decided the info should be part of this thread either for OP or future readers, so here goes:
  Enterprise Linux distributions are unbeatable for their purpose. To your point, I've never in my entire career had even the smallest issue maintaining one, they're wonderful. They achieve this, though, by being a stable, truly versioned release that will never see anything beyond minor upgrades. The reason why nobody recommends server distros for gaming is because of hardware compatibility and library support, and you end up maintaining more of your own junk anyway. Got the latest gpu? Great, compile your drivers.
  Enterprise Linux distros are awesome and the most painless Linux experience imaginable, as well as a great workstation experience too BUT they typically are among the worst options for gaming if you want a simple system.
- EL 7 is EL 7. But that time is over

it’s also supported by Homebrew Package Manager so you can use command line shells outside containers without layering if you want to

does an Atomic / Immutable distro use more disk space than say my Arch install? if yes, how much more? if no, I am moving immediately.
- It uses more, yeah. But it's not a lot more. You could maybe compare the iso sizes

Try NixOS. It's not that hard to use. And also try Home Manager when you'll be on it.

You might wanna rephrase that or some feds are gonna have a field day.

Your user configs and home files are never changed when you 'image hop'.
So I have an older Lenovo Laptop that I'm looking to put Linux on to replace an even older Lenovo Laptop I currently have Linux on, and this bit really has me curious about Fedora Atomic. I'm only learning about it now through this post.
I have intermediate experience with Linux, as it's not my daily driver, how far into the deep end would I be plunging if I gave Fedora Atomic a try?
- The ublue releases (bazzite/bluefin/aurora) are tweaked to be set up and ready to go with minimal or no set up. You can switch between ublue and the normal fedora atomic distros, or even user customized variants, from what I understand. The root system will change, but anything installed under your user account will stay the same. The only problem that might occur between switching is that different desktop environments might overwrite some settings and cause problems that way. You would want a way to backup your config files just in case if you do a lot of switching.
  This also means you can't install multiple desktop environments side by side. Like if you wanted to choose between kde,gnome,xfce at the log in screen, it's not possible under the atmoic distros. When i've done that on regular distros it would always result in a mess, and getting rid of a DE meant a lot of orphaned programs I didn't want, so I avoid doing that, but this is a potential downside to the atomic distros. You would have to rebase and redownload stuff every time you switch DE.
  Otherwise they are rock solid and basically designed to get you up and running as fast as possible, and be as stable as possible with seamless background updates. I'm running bluefin, and it's the most user friendly and smooth experience on linux i've ever had.
  
  huh, very interesting. I think I'll give Bazzite a shot and see how it goes. I have an T490 kicking around, but it only has the Intel UHD graphics (no NVIDA Mobile chip, sadly), but on Windows it could handle some gaming. So, I'll be curious to see how it works out. The Bazzite site says it doesn't support the "Steam Gaming Mode", which just means the steam big picture mode.

wonder how it is on aarch64, I might try it

I've been running bluefin for about a week and I agree. One of the best things about these different distros is they install and configure a lot of things for you. Bluefin installs with flatpak, homebrew, distrobox, podman/docker, devcontainers configured and running on install, good peripheral support, good desktop tweaks, and sensible but easily removable default apps. Bazzite does something similar for gaming installs. It's great. If there are common apps or configs that their users want they try to implement it and get it set up and running on install, if possible. The most friction free linux install I've ever had.

I agree it is great, but am I the only one running Opensuse MicroOS?
- Totally get why you'd ask if you're the only one on openSUSE MicroOS, especially with all the buzz around Fedora Atomic. Let's explore what the latter has going for it that have helped their adoption race ahead:
  Head Start & Delivering Desktop Variety: Fedora Atomic desktops' efforts simply got rolling earlier. Importantly, they also managed to deliver a solid KDE Plasma option (Kinoite) alongside their GNOME flagship (Silverblue) in a reasonable timeframe. For instance, the ideas for Fedora Atomic started around April 2014, and Kinoite hit beta by November 2021. Now, consider openSUSE: their work in this immutable space (with some roots in Project Kubic around May 2017) is still, as of May 2025, working towards a beta release for Kalpa (the KDE version). This extended wait for a polished KDE experience – a desktop environment hugely popular within the openSUSE community and beyond – undoubtedly has implications for overall adoption and even the perceived momentum of MicroOS as a desktop project. When a major DE option, especially one with KDE's broad appeal, is lagging, it can slow things down.
  The uBlue Phenomenon: Can't stress this enough – community projects like uBlue (and its offshoots) have been an enormous catalyst. They make Fedora Atomic super accessible with pre-configured images including NVIDIA drivers, codecs, and common tools. They've likely single-handedly tripled or quadrupled the user base for Fedora Atomic by just making them work out of the box for more people.
  Fedora's Broader Reach: Generally, Fedora just has a larger overall user base than openSUSE. While both are fantastic, top-tier distros, Fedora's wider existing audience naturally gives its specialized spins, like Fedora Atomic, a larger initial pool of potential users to draw from.
  So, what's the deal with openSUSE MicroOS (or Aeon/Kalpa for desktop)?
  Right now, its approach to being "managed" or declarative feels a bit milder. When people dive into immutable/declarative systems, they often see a spectrum:
  Fedora Atomic: A great middle-ground. Solid immutability, familiar tools, and not an overwhelming learning curve.
  NixOS: The deep end – full declarative power, but its language can be a beast.
  People often move between these. If NixOS is too much, Fedora Atomic becomes a common landing spot. If they love what Fedora Atomic offers but crave even more control, they might look to NixOS. For someone already in this mindset, openSUSE MicroOS's unique draw isn't as sharply defined yet. And let's be real, for many long-time openSUSE aficionados, the fact that YaST – arguably a killer feature and a huge USP for the traditional distro – isn't really part of the Aeon/Kalpa experience (or MicroOS generally in the same way) definitely stings a bit. It feels like a missed opportunity when such a cornerstone tool doesn't quite make the jump to the new paradigm.
  Where I think openSUSE MicroOS Desktop is compelling is as a super logical next step for openSUSE Tumbleweed users. It's less about being an entirely new, radical thing like NixOS (or even Fedora Atomic in some ways). It's more like it takes the best bits from atomicity and transactional updates (think easy rollbacks with transactional-update and a read-only root) and blends them into the fantastic Tumbleweed foundation.
  So, it’s an evolution of a trusted model, beefing it up, rather than a completely different animal. This is probably the openSUSE team's vision. Time will tell how it fully distinguishes itself, but it’s a smart way to get modern robustness without throwing out all the familiar openSUSE goodness.
  Hope that lands better! It's definitely a space changing fast.
  
  Why are you using ChapGPT to make comments on lemmy? What’s the point?
  
  I can't wait until we get competing communities that aren't so eager to censor dissent.
  Taking power away from these abusive mods needs to happen yesterday.
  Let the people decide for themselves what they get to see. That's what the block feature is for.
  
  thanks, that's comprehensive, I recommend it at least :-)

I dunno, usually shilling something as hard as possible just means you're a fanboy, it doesn't mean it's as good as you say it is.
I'll wait and see until most people willingly make the choice to immutable distros before believing it's "10/10 the future of linux" or whatever.
Personally, I get annoyed even on regular distros when there's a file that I can't easily edit. I don't really see any of the benefit of immutable distros other than giving the fedora crowd (who loves shilling their OS) a stiffy.
I'm more interested in fixing real issues like having to prepend prime-run to every game I want to use my dedicated GPU or why my IP can leak while connected to a VPN using my system's network configuration.
Heck, I'd be interested in seeing a fix for LUKS when entering the wrong password once requires restarting because something failed to mount or whatever.
You know, practical problems.

Why not just run a hypervisor and use containers?
- I have a build like this for tinkering but to say it is slow and inefficient is an understatement. Very secure though. I can't really see daily driving it.

I never see the cons (excluding nixos) being that only a few desktops(eg kde,gnome,i3 and budgie) are offered compared to mutable distros

10/10 this is the future of Linux
Totally agree

74 comments