I recently set up Bazzite on my friend’s system after switching from Linux Mint due to some Nvidia driver issues. Although the hardware problems are not there anymore, the distro is now facing problems installing certain programs for software development that they had no problem installing in the previous distro. I think there are issues related to the immutability of the distro, though I am not sure since I am new to Linux too. Additionally, my friend is worried about higher storage consumption and slower performance in certain applications.

I realise the distro is primarily meant for gamers and my friend is not much of a gamer themselves, however they told me they appreciate its friendlier KDE interface so I wish to avoid switching from this distro again if possible. However I fear that they may encounter more errors in the future and that I may not be available to help them out whenever needed, so I am in a bit of a conundrum.

Thus I intend to ask here if it is possible to arrange something for easing development related tasks e.g. VM, distrobox etc. or whether it is easier to simply switch to some other compatible distro.

  • Tobias Hunger@programming.dev
    12·
    14 hours ago

    First off, you do not need to know most of that stuff. Tooling around container-based development is really nice nowadays. It just works almost all the time – and way more often than in mutable setups.

    As a beginner you can not really transfer docs from one distribution to another, so you look for docs on your distribution and ask in the official support channels. Those of bazzite are pretty responsive and will be able to help. The community is able to help way better than in a traditional system where every installation is almost but not exactly the same.

    Nothing is as bad as accidentally removing some important OS files and not knowing how to restore them. That will just not happen in an immutable setup.

    I have installed immutable distros on lots of computers and the users usually are happier than they were on traditional linux: Nothing breaks anymore, the setup is way more solid. Its great for me, too, as I need to support them less often.

    Seriously, you should give this a try: Immutable OSes are a huge step forward. Takes a few days to get used to, but I am pretty sure you will not want to go back afterwards.

    • just_another_person@lemmy.world
      21·
      9 hours ago

      I’ve been building custom immutable distros for more than a decade. They have their place. Desktop and development ain’t that place.

      The main application and use-case is obvious: IoT, EDD, consumer devices…etc. Maybe even bare metal if you don’t have proper PXE or other remote image booting. They mean nothing for cloud, because, well, why? They certainly aren’t needed for any container-based work either, because containers.

      There’s a reason why devs aren’t adopting them.

      Also, on your point about people “accidentally” deleting crucial files, that’s a straw man’s argument. If you have users in any kind of setting where you need a stable and repeatable install, you’re working with mapped network mounts and these users don’t have sudo/root access. If you’re dumb enough to be giving them said access, or deleting these files yourself, well that’s on you.

      • Tobias Hunger@programming.dev
        12·
        7 hours ago

        Immutable distros are the future for everything. We just need to wait a for the people most heavily invested into the status quo to retire.

        Any user can delete important OS files by turning their computer off while an upgrade is running in almost all traditional distros:-) Sure, you can disable updates, but that is not an option either.