Someone might correct me if I’m wrong but it’s that, plus extra tooling to redirect the stuff that needs to be writable, plus more extra tooling to allow you to temporarily unlock the read-only parts in order to do system updates, plus a system updater that puts the whole system more-or-less under version control.
You are allowed to modify stuff but it is not actually changing the install as is.
This is achieved by different techniques like file system overlays, containerisation, btrfs snapshots and so on.
The idea is to replicate the classical behavior you know from embedded devices that have their core functionality in ROM with even firmware updates only overlayed or modern smartphones: You can modify your system but in the end there’s always the possibilty to “reset to factory settings” as in: the last known working configuration.
This kinda response is so funny to me. I’ve seen similar attacks on Rust, and all I can assume is either you’re in the 0.01% of users who are ideal use cases and have never had an issue caused by something that could have been prevented by immutability, or you just have that crab bucket, “well I put up with the frustration, so everyone else should have to too!” mentality
I’m not even here to claim that immutability is ideal for everyone, but “haha you like to not waste your time unfucking your OS” is not the epic burn you think it is
It’s similar to using Deep Freeze on Windows where outside of specific writeable directories anything that shouldn’t be changed isn’t allowed to change.
Wait, what? I’m legit not familiar with immutable distros, is it like you’re only allowed to modify certain directories?
Yes, kind of.
Someone might correct me if I’m wrong but it’s that, plus extra tooling to redirect the stuff that needs to be writable, plus more extra tooling to allow you to temporarily unlock the read-only parts in order to do system updates, plus a system updater that puts the whole system more-or-less under version control.
In simplified terms:
You are allowed to modify stuff but it is not actually changing the install as is.
This is achieved by different techniques like file system overlays, containerisation, btrfs snapshots and so on.
The idea is to replicate the classical behavior you know from embedded devices that have their core functionality in ROM with even firmware updates only overlayed or modern smartphones: You can modify your system but in the end there’s always the possibilty to “reset to factory settings” as in: the last known working configuration.
So, baby-proofing Linux?
We prefer “security hardening” but yes that… Also works lol
I’d describe it as making computer systems reliable.
This kinda response is so funny to me. I’ve seen similar attacks on Rust, and all I can assume is either you’re in the 0.01% of users who are ideal use cases and have never had an issue caused by something that could have been prevented by immutability, or you just have that crab bucket, “well I put up with the frustration, so everyone else should have to too!” mentality
I’m not even here to claim that immutability is ideal for everyone, but “haha you like to not waste your time unfucking your OS” is not the epic burn you think it is
It’s similar to using Deep Freeze on Windows where outside of specific writeable directories anything that shouldn’t be changed isn’t allowed to change.