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Seconding this. I ran Silverblue until recently due to some bugs in Kinoite but switched as soon as possible because GNOME sucks. Its the first distro I've use

Seconding this. I ran Silverblue until recently due to some bugs in Kinoite but switched as soon as possible because GNOME sucks. Its the first distro I've used in 20 years that doesn't feel like a stiff wind could cause the whole thing to collapse and catch fire in an unrecoverable way, while still allowing me to run any software I want instead of just what is in some limited curated repo. And unlike Nix, I didn't need to learn a new language to use it.

smoldesu 4y ago
Does Silverblue still support traditional package managers? An immutable OS seems nice and I like Bubblewrap's isolation, but I would never switch full-time to an all-Flatpak distro...
- enticeing 4y ago
  You can install all the usual software from the Fedora repos, but you need to do a reboot before you can use it. See the Package Layering section here: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/getting-started/ https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/getti...
  - speed_spread 4y ago
    (for other readers) This is only required for packages that require low-level integration - services, virtualization, drivers. The Silverblue big idea is that you should make maximum use of flatpaks and "toolbox" containerized environments, all which "float" over the base OS. Once everything's been "layered" to your liking, you rarely touch the base OS anymore except for updates.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  In addition to the sibling comment about layering, this is largely what toolbox is for. Essentially you create containerized environments with a lot of integration (you can run GUI apps from them) and install whatever you want in those. toolbox create new_dev_env_or_whatever toolbox enter new_dev_env_or_whatever dnf install all_the_things And now you've got a container with whatever installed. To use it you do have to use `toolbox enter` or `toolbox run` though. Distrobox is basically the same thing for people who don't use Fedora. I have my issues with both Flatpak and Toolbox as far as how they're put together and work, but overall I find it to be a vast improvement on the status-quo way of doing things. YMMV, of course.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Interesting, that's much better than what I assumed. NixOS' composition tools are fairly similar, at least in scope.
  - speed_spread 4y ago
    I found distrobox to be useful even on Fedora. For some reason running CLion under a plain toolbox resulted in very frequent system-wide pauses lasting several seconds.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
      I had the same issue on Kinoite 35 specifically, but only with GTK applications. That forced me to Silverblue at the time, but 37 seems to have ironed out whatever it was.
- piaste 4y ago
  Yes, you use 'rpm-ostree' to install and manage regular dnf packages, or local .RPM files. The limitations are: 1) Each invocation of the package manager (install/upgrade/uninstall, the usual stuff) results in a new OS 'commit' and requires a reboot to switch to it. This is the entire point of the distro (random .rpm broke your system? just rollback), and is why Silverblue users generally only use DNF packages for low-level tools and run regular applications as flatpaks, appimages, or podmans. 2) Occasionally you'll run into a package that wants to write to a folder that Silverblue made read-only and version-controlled, and breaks. In that case your only options are to run the package inside a toolbox (a special Podman container that comes with Silverblue for these scenarios), or patching the package.
- pxc 4y ago
  Never mind traditional package managers... you plug it in right, you can run Nix on Silverblue! https://gitlab.com/ahayzen/silverblue-nix https://gitlab.com/ahayzen/silverblue-nix NixOS people will prefer NixOS, but Silverblue seems like a nice complement to Nix if you need an FHS base system and want to retain some Nix-ish features like rollbacks and atomic upgrades.

smoldesu 4y ago

Does Silverblue still support traditional package managers? An immutable OS seems nice and I like Bubblewrap's isolation, but I would never switch full-time to an all-Flatpak distro...

enticeing 4y ago
You can install all the usual software from the Fedora repos, but you need to do a reboot before you can use it. See the Package Layering section here: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/getting-started/ https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-silverblue/getti...
- speed_spread 4y ago
  (for other readers) This is only required for packages that require low-level integration - services, virtualization, drivers. The Silverblue big idea is that you should make maximum use of flatpaks and "toolbox" containerized environments, all which "float" over the base OS. Once everything's been "layered" to your liking, you rarely touch the base OS anymore except for updates.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
In addition to the sibling comment about layering, this is largely what toolbox is for. Essentially you create containerized environments with a lot of integration (you can run GUI apps from them) and install whatever you want in those. toolbox create new_dev_env_or_whatever toolbox enter new_dev_env_or_whatever dnf install all_the_things And now you've got a container with whatever installed. To use it you do have to use `toolbox enter` or `toolbox run` though. Distrobox is basically the same thing for people who don't use Fedora. I have my issues with both Flatpak and Toolbox as far as how they're put together and work, but overall I find it to be a vast improvement on the status-quo way of doing things. YMMV, of course.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Interesting, that's much better than what I assumed. NixOS' composition tools are fairly similar, at least in scope.
- speed_spread 4y ago
  I found distrobox to be useful even on Fedora. For some reason running CLion under a plain toolbox resulted in very frequent system-wide pauses lasting several seconds.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
    I had the same issue on Kinoite 35 specifically, but only with GTK applications. That forced me to Silverblue at the time, but 37 seems to have ironed out whatever it was.
piaste 4y ago
Yes, you use 'rpm-ostree' to install and manage regular dnf packages, or local .RPM files. The limitations are: 1) Each invocation of the package manager (install/upgrade/uninstall, the usual stuff) results in a new OS 'commit' and requires a reboot to switch to it. This is the entire point of the distro (random .rpm broke your system? just rollback), and is why Silverblue users generally only use DNF packages for low-level tools and run regular applications as flatpaks, appimages, or podmans. 2) Occasionally you'll run into a package that wants to write to a folder that Silverblue made read-only and version-controlled, and breaks. In that case your only options are to run the package inside a toolbox (a special Podman container that comes with Silverblue for these scenarios), or patching the package.
pxc 4y ago
Never mind traditional package managers... you plug it in right, you can run Nix on Silverblue! https://gitlab.com/ahayzen/silverblue-nix https://gitlab.com/ahayzen/silverblue-nix NixOS people will prefer NixOS, but Silverblue seems like a nice complement to Nix if you need an FHS base system and want to retain some Nix-ish features like rollbacks and atomic upgrades.