Dev1 Galaxy Forum / [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (stargate-sg1-cheyenne-mtn) — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 17:05:51 +0000

did a DDG-Lite search for "BTRFS has bad effects on SSD drives"(no quotation marks for the search) and a few random picks were:

https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/is-btrfs-good-for-my-ssd/27432

https://www.reddit.com/r/btrfs/comments/18qfof3/is_it_bad_for_ssd_nvme/

as always, ymmv.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (zapper) — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 04:23:35 +0000

pcalvert alas, BTRFS has bad effects on SSD drives.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (pcalvert) — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 12:16:21 +0000

@zapper

For even more information, here are some relevant links:

https://packages.debian.org/stable/snapper
https://packages.debian.org/stable/snapper-gui
https://packages.debian.org/stable/timeshift

Also, I should have mentioned that ZFS has rollback capability as well.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (zapper) — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 07:47:53 +0000

@pcalvert I am not sure how that works , but thanks for the info

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (pcalvert) — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:07:33 +0000

zapper wrote:

The reason I had interest btw, is because the concept of secure rollbacks if something didn't update correctly.

You can accomplish that by using BTRFS or LVM. Years ago (on the Debian forum) I mentioned that I would use such an approach if I ever decided to run Debian Sid.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (zapper) — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 04:26:17 +0000

@ralph I have more or less determined that I will use a non immutable, just because i looked into it and there's too many issues to resolve.

The reason I had interest btw, is because the concept of secure rollbacks if something didn't update correctly.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (ralph.ronnquist) — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 21:21:41 +0000

In my mind, the term "immutable distro" is a marketing term that really means "I, 'the vendor', knows best; Just pay us and we'll fix it.".... a variant of "secure boot", I'd say.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (pcalvert) — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 18:37:10 +0000

greenjeans wrote:

If everything works, why update?

Because not updating is a bad practice, security-wise. And that's a major reason why I would never use a Puppy Linux derivative (or similar) as my "daily driver". By the way, I did try that once, years ago, on an old computer, but quickly gave up because the system was too unstable.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (greenjeans) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 02:16:02 +0000

good luck with updates

If everything works, why update?

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (Devarch) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:30:59 +0000

If you REALLY want immutable, burn your favorite distro to a DVD and run it live. Maybe with a persistence partition on metal/ssd.

good luck with updates

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (greenjeans) — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:44:13 +0000

If you REALLY want immutable, burn your favorite distro to a DVD and run it live. Maybe with a persistence partition on metal/ssd.

I used to run Puppy Linux that way.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (Devarch) — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 13:12:43 +0000

What do they call "immutable distro" is just the system where YOUR ACCESS to it is LIMITED but you can write any malware e.g. in /home.

If you want really immutable distro you can install and configure bilibop from devuan's repo.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (Matlib) — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 11:52:44 +0000

Choose read only on root filesystem when installing. It is also possible to add ro /etc/fstab later on.

I don't use “FDE” myself but I don't see what the relation between that and read only / is.

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (zapper) — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 03:23:55 +0000

@matlib I wonder how you set that up though... Especially with FDE

Re: [SOLVED] Question, about immutable distros

dummy@example.com (pcalvert) — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 00:03:59 +0000

zapper wrote:

Does this mean that you cannot compile stuff and then do make install onto your system even with sudo or doas?

According to my limited understanding, you're expected to use Flatpak to install any additional software that you may want. And I'm guessing that some software that is available in "tarball" format, like Firefox, SeaMonkey, etc., could be installed into your home directory as well.