6 ms·

Been using Fedora Silverblue since its release and it's absolutely the future. ostree is what everyone should be using.

elesiuta 3y ago
> ostree is what everyone should be using I currently use Ubuntu for my server, and I see there's ostree in my repos, I haven't gotten around to trying it yet but I'd like to just start versioning my system as is with it. If that's too difficult/not possible to do, then I intend to switch my server over to Silverblue at some point because I really like the idea behind ostree.
thatcherthorn 3y ago
For what reasons?
- hollander 3y ago
  I suppose snapshots, so you can retirn to a previous state in case of trouble
  - morjom 3y ago
    Introducing, BTRFS + Snapper.
- INTPenis 3y ago
  It's a combination of two things, open source packages have matured to a very stable level. Fedora uses very recent packages and it just works somehow because they've all become very good. So to keep a stable desktop system there is no more reason to use "sta(b)le" packages. The other reason is snapshots, because no system is perfect. An operating system should in fact be designed around the fact that something will go wrong. Windows has had this for years, and some linux users have done it with btrfs. But Fedora Silverblue does it seamlessly with ostree and grub, so if something does go wrong in a newly applied update, you simply choose the last working one in the grub menu and go on with your day until you have time to resolve it. This for me to use Fedora as my daily driver is crucial.
hx8 3y ago
I found Silverblue to not be flexible enough for my person computers. Maybe I use Linux in a hacky way, not having write access to /usr or /bin or other folders drove me crazy about once every two weeks. For example, I was using a script written by an ubuntu user that was looking for a library with the name/location ubuntu puts it in. Fedora uses a different name for the library. My instinct here is to create a symbolic link with the Ubuntu name that points to the Fedora rpm managed library. Instead, to get it to work I forked the script, got it to build locally, made it look for either library name, ran local test cases, submitted the code as a PR upstream, etc etc etc. It took something that would normally cost me 1 line of shell to fix to something that took 90 minutes.
- anthk 3y ago
  Use toolbox and do all your CLI scripting there.
- INTPenis 3y ago
  Wow you're using Silverblue all wrong, you're even using regular Fedora wrong. Even before I switched to Silverblue I was known to create Ubuntu containers to run tools from there. That's what you should have done, run it in a container. If you're not comfortable with containers then the workflow in Silverblue will feel very strange.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > My instinct here is to create a symbolic link with the Ubuntu name that points to the Fedora rpm managed library. I sympathize, but also AIUI this is exactly the sort of monkey patching that these systems are trying hard to avoid; yes, it fixes your immediate problem, but it leaves an undocumented, unmanaged change in how your system finds libraries. In my personal experience, this is the kind of change that leads to machines growing weird behavior that ends when I give up and so a clean reinstall.
- akvadrako 3y ago
  There are 3 ways to get what you want more easily: 1. With Fedora Silverblue 39 the most straightforward way is to add a Dockerfile layer just which makes your changes directly to the base image. 2. You can also create your own RPM and make the changes there. 3. Best is to actually run your script in an Ubuntu container (distrobox, toolbx, or podman).
gettodachoppa 3y ago
I like the idea of ostree but having glanced at it, as a casual/intermediate user, it didn't seem as user-friendly as, say, Docker was (which a home user can learn in an afternoon). It wasn't obvious how to get to "Debian distro deployed as an ostree snapshot". Is this one of those things designed for career sysadmins/system builders only?
- jcastro 3y ago
  You don't consume ostree directly like that, what happens is someone would make Debian ostree-enabled OCI images for users to consume and adapt. https://opendev.org/starlingx/apt-ostree https://opendev.org/starlingx/apt-ostree is one such effort to bring ostree to debian.
  - thinkmassive 3y ago
    EndlessOS (mentioned in the article) is a Debian derivative based on OSTree, in development since around 2016 (maybe earlier). You might find their forum (intended for end users, not much about development) or some of their repos useful: https://github.com/endlessm https://github.com/endlessm https://community.endlessos.com/ https://community.endlessos.com/
    - jcastro 3y ago
      I'm familiar with endless (and their excellent team!). The current issue is that it doesn't support layering like Silverblue does via rpm-ostree. I'd be awesome if there was a community effort around bringing the layering functionality and bootc enablement to all of Debian and then we could have our cake and eat it too!
INTPenis 3y ago
I'm one year in and hell yes. I wonder if Red Hat realize what they have here. Not just in silverblue but in Fedora. I read a quora answer that estimated the Windows OS development budget at around 18 billion dollars, based on salaries. Imagine if Red Hat invested 2bn into Fedora to make it the Firefox of the desktop OS world. Just a 10% share is very significant against Microsoft. They've come so far with so little, on the back of thousands of open source packages. That money could be used to keep those projects alive, and to sponsor them while they're being developed. Red Hat employees are already involved in a lot of them.
- actinium226 3y ago
  You're conflating development budgets and marketing budgets. Redhat could invest 200bn into Fedora or any other project, and still people won't switch to it because even if it's "better" by some arbitrary metric, it's not what people are used to. It's definitely possible, but it looks like Linux is more likely to gain popularity via WSL than via Fedora or similar.
- fragmede 3y ago
  I mean, where do you think Ubuntu came from?
- nonameiguess 3y ago
  I'm not sure any company, Microsoft included, really cares about the personal desktop/laptop OS market at this point. Maybe Apple, but only because it's bundled with the hardware, which is what they really care about. Microsoft and IBM care far more cloud platforms and enterprise users. Until Fedora comes out with something like Active Directory, SCCM, Sharepoint, and the Office Suite, businesses will continue to overwhelmingly use Windows. And most of those people will use Windows at home, too, if for no other reason than to not have to learn how to use two different desktop systems.
colordrops 3y ago
Have you tried Nix? If so, how does it compare? I haven't tried Silverblue, but Nix also feels like it's the future.
ponorin 3y ago
Funny enaugh, once an update rendered my Silverblue install unbootable. I had to boot to a live image to fix GRUB misconfiguration. Now I know it's not invincible, but it does work well otherwise.
Cheeeetah 3y ago
Don't represent everyone.
RedCinnabar 3y ago
The day Debian will make this immutable stuff mandatory will be the day I will ditch Linux from my computer.

> ostree is what everyone should be using I currently use Ubuntu for my server, and I see there's ostree in my repos, I haven't gotten around to trying it yet but I'd like to just start versioning my system as is with it. If that's too difficult/not possible to do, then I intend to switch my server over to Silverblue at some point because I really like the idea behind ostree.

thatcherthorn 3y ago

For what reasons?

hollander 3y ago
I suppose snapshots, so you can retirn to a previous state in case of trouble
- morjom 3y ago
  Introducing, BTRFS + Snapper.
INTPenis 3y ago
It's a combination of two things, open source packages have matured to a very stable level. Fedora uses very recent packages and it just works somehow because they've all become very good. So to keep a stable desktop system there is no more reason to use "sta(b)le" packages. The other reason is snapshots, because no system is perfect. An operating system should in fact be designed around the fact that something will go wrong. Windows has had this for years, and some linux users have done it with btrfs. But Fedora Silverblue does it seamlessly with ostree and grub, so if something does go wrong in a newly applied update, you simply choose the last working one in the grub menu and go on with your day until you have time to resolve it. This for me to use Fedora as my daily driver is crucial.

hx8 3y ago

I found Silverblue to not be flexible enough for my person computers. Maybe I use Linux in a hacky way, not having write access to /usr or /bin or other folders drove me crazy about once every two weeks. For example, I was using a script written by an ubuntu user that was looking for a library with the name/location ubuntu puts it in. Fedora uses a different name for the library. My instinct here is to create a symbolic link with the Ubuntu name that points to the Fedora rpm managed library. Instead, to get it to work I forked the script, got it to build locally, made it look for either library name, ran local test cases, submitted the code as a PR upstream, etc etc etc. It took something that would normally cost me 1 line of shell to fix to something that took 90 minutes.

anthk 3y ago
Use toolbox and do all your CLI scripting there.
INTPenis 3y ago
Wow you're using Silverblue all wrong, you're even using regular Fedora wrong. Even before I switched to Silverblue I was known to create Ubuntu containers to run tools from there. That's what you should have done, run it in a container. If you're not comfortable with containers then the workflow in Silverblue will feel very strange.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> My instinct here is to create a symbolic link with the Ubuntu name that points to the Fedora rpm managed library. I sympathize, but also AIUI this is exactly the sort of monkey patching that these systems are trying hard to avoid; yes, it fixes your immediate problem, but it leaves an undocumented, unmanaged change in how your system finds libraries. In my personal experience, this is the kind of change that leads to machines growing weird behavior that ends when I give up and so a clean reinstall.
akvadrako 3y ago
There are 3 ways to get what you want more easily: 1. With Fedora Silverblue 39 the most straightforward way is to add a Dockerfile layer just which makes your changes directly to the base image. 2. You can also create your own RPM and make the changes there. 3. Best is to actually run your script in an Ubuntu container (distrobox, toolbx, or podman).

gettodachoppa 3y ago

I like the idea of ostree but having glanced at it, as a casual/intermediate user, it didn't seem as user-friendly as, say, Docker was (which a home user can learn in an afternoon). It wasn't obvious how to get to "Debian distro deployed as an ostree snapshot". Is this one of those things designed for career sysadmins/system builders only?

jcastro 3y ago
You don't consume ostree directly like that, what happens is someone would make Debian ostree-enabled OCI images for users to consume and adapt. https://opendev.org/starlingx/apt-ostree https://opendev.org/starlingx/apt-ostree is one such effort to bring ostree to debian.
- thinkmassive 3y ago
  EndlessOS (mentioned in the article) is a Debian derivative based on OSTree, in development since around 2016 (maybe earlier). You might find their forum (intended for end users, not much about development) or some of their repos useful: https://github.com/endlessm https://github.com/endlessm https://community.endlessos.com/ https://community.endlessos.com/
  - jcastro 3y ago
    I'm familiar with endless (and their excellent team!). The current issue is that it doesn't support layering like Silverblue does via rpm-ostree. I'd be awesome if there was a community effort around bringing the layering functionality and bootc enablement to all of Debian and then we could have our cake and eat it too!

INTPenis 3y ago

I'm one year in and hell yes. I wonder if Red Hat realize what they have here. Not just in silverblue but in Fedora. I read a quora answer that estimated the Windows OS development budget at around 18 billion dollars, based on salaries. Imagine if Red Hat invested 2bn into Fedora to make it the Firefox of the desktop OS world. Just a 10% share is very significant against Microsoft. They've come so far with so little, on the back of thousands of open source packages. That money could be used to keep those projects alive, and to sponsor them while they're being developed. Red Hat employees are already involved in a lot of them.

actinium226 3y ago
You're conflating development budgets and marketing budgets. Redhat could invest 200bn into Fedora or any other project, and still people won't switch to it because even if it's "better" by some arbitrary metric, it's not what people are used to. It's definitely possible, but it looks like Linux is more likely to gain popularity via WSL than via Fedora or similar.
fragmede 3y ago
I mean, where do you think Ubuntu came from?
nonameiguess 3y ago
I'm not sure any company, Microsoft included, really cares about the personal desktop/laptop OS market at this point. Maybe Apple, but only because it's bundled with the hardware, which is what they really care about. Microsoft and IBM care far more cloud platforms and enterprise users. Until Fedora comes out with something like Active Directory, SCCM, Sharepoint, and the Office Suite, businesses will continue to overwhelmingly use Windows. And most of those people will use Windows at home, too, if for no other reason than to not have to learn how to use two different desktop systems.

colordrops 3y ago

Have you tried Nix? If so, how does it compare? I haven't tried Silverblue, but Nix also feels like it's the future.

ponorin 3y ago

Funny enaugh, once an update rendered my Silverblue install unbootable. I had to boot to a live image to fix GRUB misconfiguration. Now I know it's not invincible, but it does work well otherwise.

Cheeeetah 3y ago

Don't represent everyone.

RedCinnabar 3y ago

The day Debian will make this immutable stuff mandatory will be the day I will ditch Linux from my computer.