Managing System Extensions on openSUSE MicroOS with sysextmgrcli If you are running openSUSE MicroOS, you already know the drill: the root filesystem is read...
This is cool, and I’m interested to see where this goes. But to me the whole sysext thing is actually a compelling argument for why Linux power users (i.e. most Linux users on lemmy) aren’t suited to immutable distros.
When something as fundamental as git requires multiple obscure commands to install, you’ve got to think twice about the target audience.
When something as fundamental as git requires multiple obscure commands to install, you’ve got to think twice about the target audience.
Ideally the tooling gets better and you don’t have to do anything else but “toolname install package” or have a declarative list of what to install.
why Linux power users (i.e. most Linux users on lemmy) aren’t suited to immutable distros.
I think the main problem is that immutable distros haven’t thought things through from the beginning.
It started out as just using flatpak and podman. But each of those has limitations. But rather than improving them, we just keep creating / bringing in new package managers. Homebrew, cold brew, system extensions, nix, etc.
Funnily enough, the only entity who is sane in this regard is Canonical. If snap has a limitation, they just update snap to not have the limitation rather than brining in another package manager.
But honestly I think the biggest offender here is flatpak. If not for its mandatory sandbox and anti CLI tool stance, it could have handled everything. “Flatpak Next” seems to be address the first issue as it is planned to have an unsandboxed mode.
This is cool, and I’m interested to see where this goes. But to me the whole sysext thing is actually a compelling argument for why Linux power users (i.e. most Linux users on lemmy) aren’t suited to immutable distros.
When something as fundamental as git requires multiple obscure commands to install, you’ve got to think twice about the target audience.
Ideally the tooling gets better and you don’t have to do anything else but “toolname install package” or have a declarative list of what to install.
I think the main problem is that immutable distros haven’t thought things through from the beginning.
It started out as just using flatpak and podman. But each of those has limitations. But rather than improving them, we just keep creating / bringing in new package managers. Homebrew, cold brew, system extensions, nix, etc.
Funnily enough, the only entity who is sane in this regard is Canonical. If snap has a limitation, they just update snap to not have the limitation rather than brining in another package manager.
But honestly I think the biggest offender here is flatpak. If not for its mandatory sandbox and anti CLI tool stance, it could have handled everything. “Flatpak Next” seems to be address the first issue as it is planned to have an unsandboxed mode.