6 ms·

Sounds like a good distro to use with your parents and grand parents, if they're not solely using iPads... That might be their target audience. What appeals t

by keyle 1y ago

Sounds like a good distro to use with your parents and grand parents, if they're not solely using iPads... That might be their target audience. What appeals to me about linux is the hackability and configurability. This takes it all away in some way, but that's not to say that they won't find a market for it.

sho_hn 1y ago
It doesn't necessarily take much hackability away. You might find it makes it easier. You can overlay changes to the read-only rootfs using the sysext mechanism. You can load and unload these extensions. This makes experiments or juggling debug stuff a lot easier than mucking about in /usr used to be. A lot of KDE Linux is about making updates and even hackability safe in terms of making things trivial to roll back or remove. A goal is to always be able to unwedge without requiring a reinstall. If you know you can overlay whatever over your /usr and always easily return to a known-good state, hackability arguably increases by lowering the risk.
- RossBencina 1y ago
  This overlay feature sounds attractive. It bothers me that there is no easy traceability or undoability when I perform random system-level Ubuntu configuration file edits to make things work on my system. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Sure I could do the professional sysadmin thing and keep a log book of every configuration change, or maybe switch to NixOS and script all my configuration changes, but something with lower effort would be welcome. Ideally you want the equivalent of "git commit -m<explanation>", "git diff" and "git log" for every change you make to system configuration.
  - stakhanov 1y ago
    CachyOS and openSUSE have you covered with btrfs and snapper pre-configured to take snapshots before/after doing potentially damaging things (and, of course, you can make them manually, whenever the thought occurs to you that you're entering the "danger zone"). You can boot into a snapshot directly from the boatloader, then rollback if you need to. Immutable distros just one-up that by trying to steer the system in a direction where it can work with a readonly rootfs in normal operation, and nudging you to take a snapshot before/after taking the rootfs from readonly to read-write. (openSUSE has you covered there as well, if that's your thing; it's called MicroOS). Both of those distros use KDE by default, so the value-add of KDE having its own distribution is basically so they can have a "reference implementation" that will always have all the latest and greatest that KDE has to offer, and showcase to the rest of the Linux world, how they envision the integration should be done. If I were to set up a library computer or a computer for my aging parents, I would choose openSUSE Leap Micro with KDE, as that would put the emphasis on stability instead.
    - vanviegen 1y ago
      There's also https://getaurora.dev/ https://getaurora.dev/ - another immutable KDE-based distro. I've been using it as my daily for ~half a year now. It just works.
  - albertzeyer 1y ago
    I keep my /etc under Git. When the system does changes automatically (via an update or whatever), I make a Git commit with a special distinct message, and so I can easily filter out all my own changes.
  - codethief 1y ago
    > Ideally you want the equivalent of "git commit -m<explanation>", "git diff" and "git log" for every change you make to system configuration. If you already commit all your changes, anyway, what keeps you from using Nix and running one more command (`nixos-rebuild switch`)?
  - mikae1 1y ago
    > something with lower effort would be welcome This is a major reason I ended up with https://getaurora.dev https://getaurora.dev. I layer a few things, but it comes with bells and whistles (like NVIDIA drivers, if you need that). I can't see myself going back to a "normal" distro. I don't want to spend time cosplaying a sysadmin, I have things to do on my computer.
  - mkesper 1y ago
    Etckeeper does that for changes to /etc https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Etckeeper https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Etckeeper
- seba_dos1 1y ago
  > It doesn't necessarily take much hackability away. It doesn't, though - as evidenced by my Steam Deck - it adds enough friction to make me not bother most of the time.
nine_k 1y ago
Seems targeted at office workplaces. A locked-down system that cannot even be corrupted or tampered with. Consider a workplace of a receptionist at a medical office, or a library computer. Linux is wonderfully flexible, which allows to create distros like that, among other things. Linux is also free as in freedom, which may be very important for trusting the code you run, or which a governmental official runs. I bet that past the alpha stage they will offer a configuration tool to prepare the images to your liking, and ways to lock the system down even more. Would work nicely over PXE boot.
- Blikkentrekker 1y ago
  That seems like a good niche to exist indeed and many people would probably misunderstand its purpose by it being called a “KDE distribution”. It would perhaps have been better if it were created by some independent group for this purpose and just happened to settle upon KDE as its interface, or rather offer multiple choices to be honest.
  - DoctorOW 1y ago
    I disagree, KDE needs both a distro and a niche for that distro to fill: > KDE is a huge producer of software. It's awkward for us to not have our own method of distributing it
    - Blikkentrekker 1y ago
      No, KDE does not need its own distro, that's the issue. They don't need their own method to distribute it which benefits no one. The idea of a distribution for this specific purpose is best left in the hands of some organization with experience with this specific purpose, not KDE whose experience is developing desktop environments. How exactly is it “awkward” for them and how exactly does distributing this in any way improve the development process of KDE? They can't even dogfood it obviously.
      - DoctorOW 1y ago
        Plasma[1] is a desktop environment made by KDE, who also makes lots of other software. They make stuff like Dolphin (file manager), Konsole (terminal emulator), and Partition Manager as OS basics already[2]. [1]: https://kde.org/plasma-desktop https://kde.org/plasma-desktop [2]: https://apps.kde.org/ https://apps.kde.org/
sandreas 1y ago
I think Aurora Linux[1] is more suitable for this purpose. However, while I love the approach of having an immutable distribution, I don't see the attack vector of ransomware handled in a good way. It does not help, if your OS is intact, but your data is irrecoverably lost due to a wrong click in the wrong browser on your system. I think the backup and restore landscape has enough tools to fix this (cloud + restic[2] or automated ZFS snapshots[3]), but it takes a bit time / a script to setup something like this for your parents in your favorite distro. 1: https://getaurora.dev/en https://getaurora.dev/en 2: https://github.com/restic/restic https://github.com/restic/restic 3: https://zrepl.github.io/ https://zrepl.github.io/
- LelouBil 1y ago
  I mean, nothing stops you from building your image of KDE Linux (or any immutable distro) with a built-in restic config. This is more about preventing the user from messing up their computer than it is about data safety. I've been using Bazzite for 2 years now (an immutable distro based on Fedora Silver blue) and I just love the fact that I can "unlock" the immutability to try something that could mess up my systemd or desktop environment, and I can just reboot to erase it all away. I also have a github action to build my custom image with the packages I want, and the configuration I want. And this makes adding a backup setup even easier, it can be baked-in the distro easily with a custom image ! Your grandparents don't have to do anything, it will auto update and auto apply (and even rollback to the n-1 build if it fails to boot)
  - sandreas 1y ago
    > I mean, nothing stops you from building your image of KDE Linux (or any immutable distro) with a built-in restic config. I hear you. The problem is, that basically nothing stops you from building anything yourself. The difference is, that there is no easy-to-use build-in solution (like time machine) and ease of use is what makes the difference. Especially a TIME difference. Of course there is software SIMILAR to time machine, but it seems to be hard to write something rock solid and easy-to-use. In fact I also have built it myself: https://github.com/sandreas/zarch https://github.com/sandreas/zarch A script that installs Arch on ZFS with ZFSBootMenu and preconfigurable "profiles" which packages and aurs to use. Support for CachyOS Kernel with integrated ZFS is on my list. I already thought putting together a Raspberry PI Image that uses SSH to PULL backups over the network from preconfigured hosts with preconfigured root public keys and is easily configurable via terminalUI, but I did not find the time yet :-) Maybe syncthing just is enough...
999900000999 1y ago
I like hacking Linux too. But some people just want a computer to work. It's not like you can't try a simple distro and move on to something more complex later.
abhinavk 1y ago
It makes hacking easier in some ways too. Overlay any hacks. It will be gone by reboot unless you want otherwise. Also see blue-build.org <- It helps you to put all your hacks in the immutable image.
dangus 1y ago
I don’t mean this as a gotcha, but have you tried an immutable/atomic Linux distro? Immutable/Atomic Linux doesn’t take away any ability to hack and configure it. It’s just a different approach to package and update management. There really isn’t anything you fans do with it that you can do on other Linux distros. I’m using Bazzite which is basically in the Fedora Atomic family and all it really changes is that if I want to rpm install something and there’s no flatpak or AppImage then I just need to decide on my preferred alternate method to install it. I find Bazzite’s documentation on the subject quite helpful: https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/ https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/ At the very worst case I’m using rpm-ostree and installing the software “traditionally” and layering it in with the base OS image. Now you might be thinking, what’s the benefit of going through all this? Well, I get extremely fast and reliable system updates that can be rolled back, and my system’s personalization and application environment is highly contained to my home directory. I’m not an expert but I have to think that there are security benefits to being forced into application sandboxing as well. Applications can’t just arbitrarily access data from each other. This isn’t explicitly a feature of immutable/atomic Linux but being forced into installation methods that are not rpm is.
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>That might be their target audience. Seems like a lot of effort and fanfare for such a niche market.
- keyle 1y ago
  That "niche" market of ageing parents with legacy hardware is much bigger than the nerd hacker market of Arch linux.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    The difference is there's a lot more HN-like users who will go out to run Arch, than ageing people installing who will go out to install Linux instead of getting a iPad/tablet.
rollcat 1y ago
> What appeals to me about linux is the hackability and configurability. Innovation happens on stable foundations, not thru rug pulls. Yes, you have the freedom to make your system unbootable. When Debian first tried to introduce systemd, I've replaced PID 1 with runit, wrote my own init scripts & service definitions, and it ran like this quite well, until... the next stable release smashed me in the face. It's absurd how hackable the Linux distros are. It's also absurd to do this to your workhorse setup.
ktosobcy 1y ago
> Sounds like a good distro to use with your parents and grand parents, if they're not solely using iPads... THIS! I was pondering putting Linux on my father's ancient machine (still running Windows7; or migrating him to something slightly newer but win10/win11 doesn't rub me the right way) but I was weary of "something wrong happening" (and I'm away right now). And having immutable base would be awesome - if something goes wrong just revert back to previous one and voila, everything still works. And he would have less options to break something…
WhyNotHugo 1y ago
The immutable aspect and the way the OS is designed sounds like a good fit for that. But I wouldn't use KDE for the typical cliched (grand)parents: it's just way too complicated for someone who's doesn't have high proficiency in tech.

by keyle 1y ago

sho_hn 1y ago

It doesn't necessarily take much hackability away. You might find it makes it easier. You can overlay changes to the read-only rootfs using the sysext mechanism. You can load and unload these extensions. This makes experiments or juggling debug stuff a lot easier than mucking about in /usr used to be. A lot of KDE Linux is about making updates and even hackability safe in terms of making things trivial to roll back or remove. A goal is to always be able to unwedge without requiring a reinstall. If you know you can overlay whatever over your /usr and always easily return to a known-good state, hackability arguably increases by lowering the risk.

RossBencina 1y ago
This overlay feature sounds attractive. It bothers me that there is no easy traceability or undoability when I perform random system-level Ubuntu configuration file edits to make things work on my system. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Sure I could do the professional sysadmin thing and keep a log book of every configuration change, or maybe switch to NixOS and script all my configuration changes, but something with lower effort would be welcome. Ideally you want the equivalent of "git commit -m<explanation>", "git diff" and "git log" for every change you make to system configuration.
- stakhanov 1y ago
  CachyOS and openSUSE have you covered with btrfs and snapper pre-configured to take snapshots before/after doing potentially damaging things (and, of course, you can make them manually, whenever the thought occurs to you that you're entering the "danger zone"). You can boot into a snapshot directly from the boatloader, then rollback if you need to. Immutable distros just one-up that by trying to steer the system in a direction where it can work with a readonly rootfs in normal operation, and nudging you to take a snapshot before/after taking the rootfs from readonly to read-write. (openSUSE has you covered there as well, if that's your thing; it's called MicroOS). Both of those distros use KDE by default, so the value-add of KDE having its own distribution is basically so they can have a "reference implementation" that will always have all the latest and greatest that KDE has to offer, and showcase to the rest of the Linux world, how they envision the integration should be done. If I were to set up a library computer or a computer for my aging parents, I would choose openSUSE Leap Micro with KDE, as that would put the emphasis on stability instead.
  - vanviegen 1y ago
    There's also https://getaurora.dev/ https://getaurora.dev/ - another immutable KDE-based distro. I've been using it as my daily for ~half a year now. It just works.
- albertzeyer 1y ago
  I keep my /etc under Git. When the system does changes automatically (via an update or whatever), I make a Git commit with a special distinct message, and so I can easily filter out all my own changes.
- codethief 1y ago
  > Ideally you want the equivalent of "git commit -m<explanation>", "git diff" and "git log" for every change you make to system configuration. If you already commit all your changes, anyway, what keeps you from using Nix and running one more command (`nixos-rebuild switch`)?
- mikae1 1y ago
  > something with lower effort would be welcome This is a major reason I ended up with https://getaurora.dev https://getaurora.dev. I layer a few things, but it comes with bells and whistles (like NVIDIA drivers, if you need that). I can't see myself going back to a "normal" distro. I don't want to spend time cosplaying a sysadmin, I have things to do on my computer.
- mkesper 1y ago
  Etckeeper does that for changes to /etc https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Etckeeper https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Etckeeper
seba_dos1 1y ago
> It doesn't necessarily take much hackability away. It doesn't, though - as evidenced by my Steam Deck - it adds enough friction to make me not bother most of the time.

nine_k 1y ago

Seems targeted at office workplaces. A locked-down system that cannot even be corrupted or tampered with. Consider a workplace of a receptionist at a medical office, or a library computer. Linux is wonderfully flexible, which allows to create distros like that, among other things. Linux is also free as in freedom, which may be very important for trusting the code you run, or which a governmental official runs. I bet that past the alpha stage they will offer a configuration tool to prepare the images to your liking, and ways to lock the system down even more. Would work nicely over PXE boot.

Blikkentrekker 1y ago
That seems like a good niche to exist indeed and many people would probably misunderstand its purpose by it being called a “KDE distribution”. It would perhaps have been better if it were created by some independent group for this purpose and just happened to settle upon KDE as its interface, or rather offer multiple choices to be honest.
- DoctorOW 1y ago
  I disagree, KDE needs both a distro and a niche for that distro to fill: > KDE is a huge producer of software. It's awkward for us to not have our own method of distributing it
  - Blikkentrekker 1y ago
    No, KDE does not need its own distro, that's the issue. They don't need their own method to distribute it which benefits no one. The idea of a distribution for this specific purpose is best left in the hands of some organization with experience with this specific purpose, not KDE whose experience is developing desktop environments. How exactly is it “awkward” for them and how exactly does distributing this in any way improve the development process of KDE? They can't even dogfood it obviously.
    - DoctorOW 1y ago
      Plasma[1] is a desktop environment made by KDE, who also makes lots of other software. They make stuff like Dolphin (file manager), Konsole (terminal emulator), and Partition Manager as OS basics already[2]. [1]: https://kde.org/plasma-desktop https://kde.org/plasma-desktop [2]: https://apps.kde.org/ https://apps.kde.org/

sandreas 1y ago

I think Aurora Linux[1] is more suitable for this purpose. However, while I love the approach of having an immutable distribution, I don't see the attack vector of ransomware handled in a good way. It does not help, if your OS is intact, but your data is irrecoverably lost due to a wrong click in the wrong browser on your system. I think the backup and restore landscape has enough tools to fix this (cloud + restic[2] or automated ZFS snapshots[3]), but it takes a bit time / a script to setup something like this for your parents in your favorite distro. 1: https://getaurora.dev/en https://getaurora.dev/en 2: https://github.com/restic/restic https://github.com/restic/restic 3: https://zrepl.github.io/ https://zrepl.github.io/

LelouBil 1y ago
I mean, nothing stops you from building your image of KDE Linux (or any immutable distro) with a built-in restic config. This is more about preventing the user from messing up their computer than it is about data safety. I've been using Bazzite for 2 years now (an immutable distro based on Fedora Silver blue) and I just love the fact that I can "unlock" the immutability to try something that could mess up my systemd or desktop environment, and I can just reboot to erase it all away. I also have a github action to build my custom image with the packages I want, and the configuration I want. And this makes adding a backup setup even easier, it can be baked-in the distro easily with a custom image ! Your grandparents don't have to do anything, it will auto update and auto apply (and even rollback to the n-1 build if it fails to boot)
- sandreas 1y ago
  > I mean, nothing stops you from building your image of KDE Linux (or any immutable distro) with a built-in restic config. I hear you. The problem is, that basically nothing stops you from building anything yourself. The difference is, that there is no easy-to-use build-in solution (like time machine) and ease of use is what makes the difference. Especially a TIME difference. Of course there is software SIMILAR to time machine, but it seems to be hard to write something rock solid and easy-to-use. In fact I also have built it myself: https://github.com/sandreas/zarch https://github.com/sandreas/zarch A script that installs Arch on ZFS with ZFSBootMenu and preconfigurable "profiles" which packages and aurs to use. Support for CachyOS Kernel with integrated ZFS is on my list. I already thought putting together a Raspberry PI Image that uses SSH to PULL backups over the network from preconfigured hosts with preconfigured root public keys and is easily configurable via terminalUI, but I did not find the time yet :-) Maybe syncthing just is enough...

999900000999 1y ago

I like hacking Linux too. But some people just want a computer to work. It's not like you can't try a simple distro and move on to something more complex later.

abhinavk 1y ago

It makes hacking easier in some ways too. Overlay any hacks. It will be gone by reboot unless you want otherwise. Also see blue-build.org <- It helps you to put all your hacks in the immutable image.

dangus 1y ago

I don’t mean this as a gotcha, but have you tried an immutable/atomic Linux distro? Immutable/Atomic Linux doesn’t take away any ability to hack and configure it. It’s just a different approach to package and update management. There really isn’t anything you fans do with it that you can do on other Linux distros. I’m using Bazzite which is basically in the Fedora Atomic family and all it really changes is that if I want to rpm install something and there’s no flatpak or AppImage then I just need to decide on my preferred alternate method to install it. I find Bazzite’s documentation on the subject quite helpful: https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/ https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/ At the very worst case I’m using rpm-ostree and installing the software “traditionally” and layering it in with the base OS image. Now you might be thinking, what’s the benefit of going through all this? Well, I get extremely fast and reliable system updates that can be rolled back, and my system’s personalization and application environment is highly contained to my home directory. I’m not an expert but I have to think that there are security benefits to being forced into application sandboxing as well. Applications can’t just arbitrarily access data from each other. This isn’t explicitly a feature of immutable/atomic Linux but being forced into installation methods that are not rpm is.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago

>That might be their target audience. Seems like a lot of effort and fanfare for such a niche market.

keyle 1y ago
That "niche" market of ageing parents with legacy hardware is much bigger than the nerd hacker market of Arch linux.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  The difference is there's a lot more HN-like users who will go out to run Arch, than ageing people installing who will go out to install Linux instead of getting a iPad/tablet.

rollcat 1y ago

> What appeals to me about linux is the hackability and configurability. Innovation happens on stable foundations, not thru rug pulls. Yes, you have the freedom to make your system unbootable. When Debian first tried to introduce systemd, I've replaced PID 1 with runit, wrote my own init scripts & service definitions, and it ran like this quite well, until... the next stable release smashed me in the face. It's absurd how hackable the Linux distros are. It's also absurd to do this to your workhorse setup.

ktosobcy 1y ago

> Sounds like a good distro to use with your parents and grand parents, if they're not solely using iPads... THIS! I was pondering putting Linux on my father's ancient machine (still running Windows7; or migrating him to something slightly newer but win10/win11 doesn't rub me the right way) but I was weary of "something wrong happening" (and I'm away right now). And having immutable base would be awesome - if something goes wrong just revert back to previous one and voila, everything still works. And he would have less options to break something…

WhyNotHugo 1y ago

The immutable aspect and the way the OS is designed sounds like a good fit for that. But I wouldn't use KDE for the typical cliched (grand)parents: it's just way too complicated for someone who's doesn't have high proficiency in tech.