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This looks like an enterprise solution, because why would you install such a locked-down OS on your personal computers? Experienced users don't usually screw up

This looks like an enterprise solution, because why would you install such a locked-down OS on your personal computers? Experienced users don't usually screw up their systems to need this thing, and new users don't touch the dangerous settings in the first place. But the website makes no effort to relate to enterprise-level administration. Strange.

haswell 2y ago
> Experienced users don't usually screw up their systems to need this thing It’s less about experienced users screwing up and more about safely running software. I do lots of small experiments and regularly clone repos from GitHub to try various projects. I prefer to do this in an environment that’s been a bit more hardened and locked down. I like the ability to get my system back to a known good state. I’ve primarily been using NixOS as a daily driver, but have been pretty curious about Vanilla OS and plan to try it out.
- dartharva 2y ago
  Which, again, is largely an enterprise/professional use case, don't you think? Why is this being marketed as a general-purpose OS then?
  - Vegenoid 2y ago
    > I do lots of small experiments and regularly clone repos from GitHub to try various projects This is something done often by many in their free time for personal reasons.
    - spookie 2y ago
      I do the same thing all the time! It has become kind of a superpower being able to deal with many different build systems, general nuisances trying to run both old and new software and just being in the know about the capabilities of all kinds of software. It's fun and keeps the blade sharp.
  - eikenberry 2y ago
    Security isn't an enterprise only feature.
  - haswell 2y ago
    I’m currently on sabbatical. No enterprises involved. Good security hygiene and having a flexible but safe development environment are not limited to the enterprise, and are practices that I apply to every project regardless of whether it’s personal or professional work; a distinction that doesn’t really make sense when you’re working with untrusted software.
saithound 2y ago
For an experienced user, the value proposition is efficiency. Sure, I can spend 3 minutes thinking about how not to screw up my system / my existing hobby projects every time I update a library. But if I'm using something like Vanilla, I can spend all those 3 minute chunks of time on something else.
nxobject 2y ago
Which part do you consider locked down: a "sealed" root volume, or apps purely running in a containerized/sandboxed environment?
- dartharva 2y ago
  the second one.
INTPenis 2y ago
I've been using immutable Linux on both my workstation and my servers for 2 years now. It definitely fits into the enterprise niche, but imho it's good for everyone. Mainly because of the ability to quicly revert back to a working state. One of the worst things that can happen as a Linux user is that some update causes an issue and forces you to spend the rest of your day troubleshooting. Since switching to ostree I just revert back to the previous working image, pin it, and continue on with my day. Trying the update later to see if the issue is resolved. This out of box is incredibly useful to beginners who don't want to learn how to troubleshoot Linux. But also enterprise sector. In the Enterprise sector I think rather immutable server OS is causing a shift in the perspective of Linux to more of an Appliance than a full blown server. My last project was actually setting up a series of container hosts on-premises in a Hypervisor. I opted to use CoreOS and could simply disable SSH on the nodes because there was no need to login to any of these nodes. If we want to make an update we re-image them in the hypervisor and re-provision the new image. This shaves off a lot of issues like for example manual changes, configuration drift, security issues with providing shells and multi-user login.
- angoragoats 2y ago
  I use NixOS on many of my machines, because it's also able to easily revert/roll back changes, plus you get declarative configuration and a bunch of other stuff that immutable, but imperative, distros don't give you.
akvadrako 2y ago
This kind of system is ideal for developers since you can have independent environments for different use cases, even with different distros. And when you upgrade your base system, they aren't affected. When you have lots of things to manage, this is a big win.

haswell 2y ago

> Experienced users don't usually screw up their systems to need this thing It’s less about experienced users screwing up and more about safely running software. I do lots of small experiments and regularly clone repos from GitHub to try various projects. I prefer to do this in an environment that’s been a bit more hardened and locked down. I like the ability to get my system back to a known good state. I’ve primarily been using NixOS as a daily driver, but have been pretty curious about Vanilla OS and plan to try it out.

dartharva 2y ago
Which, again, is largely an enterprise/professional use case, don't you think? Why is this being marketed as a general-purpose OS then?
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  > I do lots of small experiments and regularly clone repos from GitHub to try various projects This is something done often by many in their free time for personal reasons.
  - spookie 2y ago
    I do the same thing all the time! It has become kind of a superpower being able to deal with many different build systems, general nuisances trying to run both old and new software and just being in the know about the capabilities of all kinds of software. It's fun and keeps the blade sharp.
- eikenberry 2y ago
  Security isn't an enterprise only feature.
- haswell 2y ago
  I’m currently on sabbatical. No enterprises involved. Good security hygiene and having a flexible but safe development environment are not limited to the enterprise, and are practices that I apply to every project regardless of whether it’s personal or professional work; a distinction that doesn’t really make sense when you’re working with untrusted software.

saithound 2y ago

For an experienced user, the value proposition is efficiency. Sure, I can spend 3 minutes thinking about how not to screw up my system / my existing hobby projects every time I update a library. But if I'm using something like Vanilla, I can spend all those 3 minute chunks of time on something else.

nxobject 2y ago

Which part do you consider locked down: a "sealed" root volume, or apps purely running in a containerized/sandboxed environment?

dartharva 2y ago
the second one.

INTPenis 2y ago

I've been using immutable Linux on both my workstation and my servers for 2 years now. It definitely fits into the enterprise niche, but imho it's good for everyone. Mainly because of the ability to quicly revert back to a working state. One of the worst things that can happen as a Linux user is that some update causes an issue and forces you to spend the rest of your day troubleshooting. Since switching to ostree I just revert back to the previous working image, pin it, and continue on with my day. Trying the update later to see if the issue is resolved. This out of box is incredibly useful to beginners who don't want to learn how to troubleshoot Linux. But also enterprise sector. In the Enterprise sector I think rather immutable server OS is causing a shift in the perspective of Linux to more of an Appliance than a full blown server. My last project was actually setting up a series of container hosts on-premises in a Hypervisor. I opted to use CoreOS and could simply disable SSH on the nodes because there was no need to login to any of these nodes. If we want to make an update we re-image them in the hypervisor and re-provision the new image. This shaves off a lot of issues like for example manual changes, configuration drift, security issues with providing shells and multi-user login.

angoragoats 2y ago
I use NixOS on many of my machines, because it's also able to easily revert/roll back changes, plus you get declarative configuration and a bunch of other stuff that immutable, but imperative, distros don't give you.

akvadrako 2y ago

This kind of system is ideal for developers since you can have independent environments for different use cases, even with different distros. And when you upgrade your base system, they aren't affected. When you have lots of things to manage, this is a big win.