1d ago

Atomic Linux Distros: What Barriers Stand Between You and Making the Switch?

Look, I've only been a Linux user for a couple of years, but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that we're not afraid to tinker. Most of us came from Windows or macOS at some point, ditching the mainstream for better control, privacy, or just to escape the corporate BS. We're the people who choose the harder path when we think it's worth it.

Which is why I find it so damn interesting that atomic distros haven't caught on more. The landscape is incredibly diverse now - from gaming-focused Bazzite to the purely functional philosophy of Guix System. These distros couldn't be more different in their approaches, but they all share this core atomic DNA.

These systems offer some seriously compelling stuff - updates that either work 100% or roll back automatically, no more "oops I bricked my system" moments, better security through immutability, and way fewer update headaches.

So what gives? Why aren't more of us jumping on board? From my conversations and personal experience, I think it boils down to a few things:

Our current setups already work fine. Let's be honest - when you've spent years perfecting your Arch or Debian setup, the thought of learning a whole new paradigm feels exhausting. Why fix what isn't broken, right?

The learning curve seems steep. Yes, you can do pretty much everything on atomic distros that you can on traditional ones, but the how is different. Instead of apt install whatever and editing config files directly, you're suddenly dealing with containers, layering, or declarative configs. It's not necessarily harder, just... different.

The docs can be sparse. Traditional distros have decades of guides, forum posts, and StackExchange answers. Atomic systems? Not nearly as much. When something breaks at 2am, knowing there's a million Google results for your error message is comforting.

I've been thinking about this because Linux has overcome similar hurdles before. Remember when gaming on Linux was basically impossible? Now we have the Steam Deck running an immutable SteamOS (of all things!) and my non-Linux friends are buying them without even realizing they're using Linux. It just works.

So I'm genuinely curious - what's keeping YOU from switching to an atomic distro? Is it specific software you need? Concerns about customization? Just can't be bothered to learn new tricks?

Your answers might actually help developers focus on the right pain points. The atomic approach makes so much sense on paper that I'm convinced it's the future - we just need to figure out what's stopping people from making the jump today.

So what would it actually take to get you to switch? I'm all ears.

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When I first switched to Linux, Bazzite was one of the first distros I tried, and I stuck with it for awhile. Eventually I decided to try out Arch, and I used that for a few months until I realized that all the stuff I was adding to Arch was just turning it into Bazzite. After that, I reinstalled Bazzite. If I’m going to be using all the same features, I might as well get the no maintenance out of the deal.

I've been running Bazzite for months and I have extremely happy with it. I switched from Windows and only use Windows for SteamVR now. I use atomic distros almost exclusively now.
If you like to customize and tweak everything about your OS than an atomic distro probably isn't for you. You probably want something like Arch.
If you need/want an OS that is incredibly reliable at the cost of disk space and customization, than an atomic distro might be for you. The main thing an atomic distro provides that a traditional one can't is reproducibility. Since the distro is a base image with packages layered on top you should be able to repeat those steps and arrive at the exactly same image. The system partition is then made immutable so that it stays in this reproducible state. This prevents users modifying system files and creating a unique system that can't be reproduced. This should make bugs easier to track down because each install of the distro is always identical. You can still add packages by layering them on top (think of each package you layer as another "step" in the image build process. By tracking the steps you have added it keeps the image reproducible). Its pretty similar to how a dockerfile works.
Bazzite also keeps the previous version of the OS, so if an update fails you still have a working computer. Like others have said you can create snapshots on traditional distros so this isn't really a unique feature, but it is nice it has it by default. I swear Bazzite also used to have A/B partitions as well which is really nice if your OS somehow gets corrupted, but my computer doesn't seem to have them anymore.
The other nice thing about an atomic OS is because it locks down your system partition the main way to install applications is either flatpaks or appimages. These use more disk space but should always have the correct dependencies (which fixes another whole class of errors). You can also use flatpaks or appimages on a traditional distro but an atomic one enforces it. If you can't install an application as a flatpak or appimage you can use package layering or distrobox to install it. Distrobox allows you to have a traditional distro in a container and integrate its applications into your main atomic OS. If something goes wrong with the container you can delete it and rebuild it without affecting your OS. You can also have a different container for each app so if something happens to one container you don't lose all of your distrobox apps. Also something you could do on a traditional distro but don't need to.
All of this leads to a really stable base os and the main advantage of an atomic OS: You should always be able to boot your computer. The downside is everything you install needs to be in a container so that if it causes an issue it doesn't affect your base os booting.
This reminds me of Proxmox and how you really shouldn't modify the host because you risk making your system unbootable and jeopardizing your containers and vms. Its much safer to have a stable, solid base and do riskier stuff in container or vm that can fail and be rebuilt. Proxmox would actually probably be a good candidate for an atomic distribution.

Tried to install Bazzite on a vm and literally couldn't get it to start up. If it isn't going to start in a VM so I can test I'm not going to bother trying to switch to it.

Snapshots and rollbacks already exist in other distros, so the (only?) advantage you are mentioning is kind of a weak point.
Everything is a bother, since you can't just easily dnf install what you need, without actually rebooting or dealing with containers. I wasn't able to get a Win11 VM and work VPN properly working for long enough that rebooting to windows and just doing the RDP there was easier for me. (Because getting TPM to work simply wasn't feasible on atomic, and no - FOSS rdps didn't work)
If an app doesn't have Snap or .App file, it will be a bother. Having to enter a container just so I can edit something in a properly set up nvim just sucks, adding bloat to something that could have been one easy command.
There's a learning curve that gets in your way a lot, and since there are no actually payoffs for going through it, why bother?
I currently have Bazzite on my desktop as a daily driver, and it has been way worse experience than I had with Nobara, debugging any issues with I.e audio or drivers is awfull because the resources about it are a lot sparser, and so far I simply don't see anything it does better. I did rollback my Nobara few times with brtfs and it never was an issue.
One thing that may be worth it, if it's the case - can you actually export your layers into a VCS that you can then simply clone, just like you can with NixOS? Because if not, then following your logic, there's really no point in choosing atomic distro over NixOS. Sure, it has a slight learning curve, but you get a system you can not only rollback, but also easily clone anywhere you need it. What are your reasons for not using NixOS?
That said - there is one use case where atomic distros are amazing - if you have a, well, atomic environment you don't need to change often. Bazzite on SteamDeck or LegionGo being the best example, I'm using it there and it's been amazing experience.

So what would it actually take to get you to switch? I'm all ears.
a compelling reason would get me to switch. you haven't presented any.
- Wrong, some were mentioned:
  These systems offer some seriously compelling stuff - updates that either work 100% or roll back automatically, no more "oops I bricked my system" moments, better security through immutability, and way fewer update headaches.
  
  is bricking systems really an issue/a common issue for common mutable Linux distros?
  
  Just do Snapshots? In OpenSuse Tumbleweed this happens out of the box every time you update packages. And you can just select the last one from the boot menu then.
  It's hardly an advantage of atomic Distros
  
  This is already a mitigated issue with btrfs and zfs though.
- You don't need a Microsoft account, or any other remotely managed account, just to login to your machine.
  You wouldn't be supporting AI-driven decision making in which Palestinian child needs to die next.
  You won't have AI shoved into places it doesn't belong like a simple text editor.
  
  I already have all that with my Debian and Arch machines.

Atomic/immutable distros are just another tool in the tool box. It is great for systems with a limited use scenario like the SteamDeck or HTPCs. I also love to install immutable distributions on systems where the user (often IT-illiterate) and the administrator are different people.
On my desktop PC I will, for the foreseeable future, use a normal distro (ArchLinux in my case) but i am planing to look into changing my servers to immutable with docker. That could make updates/maintenance easier and reduce the risk for full server compromises

but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that we’re not afraid to tinker.
^ that's the reason right there. You really can't tinker with atomic distributions. And if you try, its just another level of abstraction that's in your way.
- You have to be trolling.
  You actually CAN tinker with atomic distros even more.
  Immutable distros offer penalty-free tinkering because of the aforementioned atomicity and rollbacks. If I screw something up, I can just rollback the entire OS or whichever parts I want.
  
  How do you tinker when everything but your home directory is in read-only mode?
- I use atomic for systems that I want to work, full stop, no matter what.
  I use traditional for systems and VMs that I want to tinker with. These may be rendered into an atomic distro at some point, if desired or necessary. But I honestly haven’t felt the need to do that yet.
  It’s just about picking the appropriate baseline os type for what you want to do on the machine in question. Much like one would pick debian or fedora or rhel or suse-based distros for various technical and esoteric reasons.
  
  This. The whole discussion about "tinkering with immutable distros" fells like it misses the point and literal meaning of atomic and immutable.
  Rebuilding the whole OS to layer another immutable read-only part into it isn't tinkering. Of changing one OS file has you rebooting, then that's not tinker-friendly.
  Atomic distributions are by definition something you don't tinker with, and it stays the way you need it.
  And no, having bundled distrobox or rollbacks doesn't make it tinker friendly, you can do both on normal distribution.
  But once you have done tinkering and want the system to stay the way it is - that's what atomic means and is for.
  
  This is the way. Prototype in a regular distro then lock it in with an immutable distro.
  I did exactly this with my XMonad/polybar/rofi/dunst/alacritty configs which I now run on NixOS.
- Immutables are absolutely viable for tinkering. The most customized system I've ever had was an immutable distro, and I could tinker with 100% confidence that I would never lose the system.

I switched from Windows to Kinoite last year because it seemed to be the one distro that actually cared about stability. The first distro I used was Ubuntu 7.04 and until Kinoite I always viewed the Linux desktop as a bit of a joke because it always broke every other update. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, it didn't matter which distro I tried, after a few months something broke. I don't tolerate this on my primary computer so I always switched back to Windows. This is the first time I have ever used a Linux distribution where I can run an major update without worrying if I still have a GUI after the next reboot. So I consider immutable distros a huge success. I don't think I would still be using Linux without them.

My limited experience with Bazzite left a sour taste in my mouth. Couldn't install themes because the dir where themes installed for KDE was locked down.
Noe I'm sure this is fixable. But that goes back to lack of documentation. And admittedly, lack of me researching further. I stuck with my Arch install because it's comfortable and familiar.
- Idk how long ago it was that you tried Bazzite, but I’ve been using it for a year or so and I’ve installed plenty of themes. I haven’t had an issue installing any other KDE customization such as widgets either.
- When asked if I read the Docs.
  
  "...lack of documentation. And admittedly, lack of me researching further."
  Clicking on the sidebar /scrolling to the bottom of main page for Docs is hard.
  Also linkage in the terminal message. 🤔
  
  This was a long time ago, this isn't something that was there when I had tried with KDE on an Atomic distro.
  And I wasn't asking for anyone to solve it for me. Appreciate the screenshots.

They just seem kinda hacky and overcomplicated rn.
I was on NixOS for a while, which is sort of in this camp since the system build is deterministic an immutable, and I've had to switch away bc it's just annoying. Apps aren't made for immutability in mind, and sometimes when you (read: your OS) try to force them to, the burden falls on you to maintain it, not just the package maintainer. VS Code is a prime example. Some extensions just don't work right. It's not Nix's fault ofc, but that doesn't make it less impractical to use, so after 2 years away from Arch now, I've had to return.
Other immutable distros face similar issues.
On top of that, specific distros have reasons I wouldn't want to use them. I wouldn't use Bazzite, for instance, bc it is based on Fedora, and I won't use Fedora again. I liked Fedora when I used it, and it has things about it I like, but it has a glaring issue: anywhere it can be non-standard it is non-standard. For apps to run on Fedora there always has to have some weird location for a config file or a different way to install a program or some bug that only occurs on Fedora. Fedora be fedorain. That rules out Bazzite, Silverblue, etc. I call it the "RedHat Tax."
I wouldn't say I'm against an immutable distro tho; I just haven't found one for me yet. For now, BTRFS and backups + Arch are enough
- I had the same experience. Long time kubuntu user and various other distros. Got on the nixos bandwagon used it on a couple computers. The breaking part for me was all well supported applications was great, but where it broke down hard were the fringe or unsupported applications I was spending a lot of time building the nix configs. After a while I just couldn't spend that much time making my computer work. Back to kubuntu lts, its so low maintenance.

I love my Gentoo, I'm a bit obsessed with optimizing everything I can. And I can't really do any of that with immutable distos. I'm contemplating very hard on using NixOS for my server, though.

What is the benefit of fedora and its atomic version, if you use flatpak and distrobox on both installs? Add btrfs snapshots and you can't brick your system either, which is your point, I guess

What'd it take for me to switch? Short of the distro I use switching the infrastructure over to it, probably nothing. And even then if an atomic distro would be annoying I'd probably jump ship to a different distro
The reason is that.. well basically the points you mentioned: I have my setup how I like it, and I don't see anything particularly compelling feature wise that'd make me interested in switching

I'm actually using an atomic distro now (Bazzite). But that's not why I chose it, and honestly I don't think the advantages are significant.
There are some downsides that affect me on a regular basis, though.
I need to reboot more since every update requires it. That feels like going back in time 25 years.
I need to deal with the complexity of multiple distros with DistroBox to get the functionality I am accustomed to. I think that alone is proof that atomic distros are not quite ready for prime time.
The advantages elude me. Snapper or timeshift handle rollbacks just fine, as long as you use a modern filesystem like btrfs. So I haven't worried about busted updates in years.
I'm quite happy with Bazzite, but I can't point to anything good about it that is specific to immutable distros. I just don't get it, really. I guess the advantages are more for the developers and maintainers than for end users.

The primary barrier for me: I'm not convinced that it's a good idea.

My current motto is, I use whatever I want and install atomic on relatives' PCs and set auto-update. Atomic is great for non tech-savvy and I like to meddle around in the file system.

Honestly the thing I kinda care more about would be a fully developed sandboxed permission controlled system like Android, just with the storage permissions like GrapheneOS. I know there are some support for this, flatpak & flatseal etc. but it is not prominent enough. I want it to cover everything, like android.

Do you know of any guides for semi tech savvy people? I'd like to try. I'd probably go with the fedora gnome immutable.
- Alternative to Silverblue is Bluefin, which is Silverblue repackaged with QoL improvements. I've been using it for a while now and like it in a set it and forget it kind of way.
- On Fedoras website there is a dedicated sections regarding Atomic Desktops. So, https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/silverblue/ is your answer.

I'm in the first camp. Atomic distros sound really neat, but I'm already happy where I am. I wish I could convince the people I work for to stop wanting to jump to some new framework or environment just because it has some neat additional features they didn't know they wanted until someone tried to sell them on it. I don't want to keep rebuilding and converting the same project. (And putting any new feature development on hold while we do so. I wonder why it seems like new ideas never get followed through on.)

I just haven't bothered reading up on what atomic systems are yet. I get the gist of it, just not enought to really understand how it affects my current workflow if I were to switch.

I like Mint. It looks like Windows, runs the software I want (including a lot of what I use on Windows). To me, the best thing an OS can ever do is stay out of my way. If it has any learning curve between me and doing the things I need and want to do, it's a bad OS for my needs,

I don't see any advantage for me. Just things that make my 08/15 usage more complicated

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