Immutable distros are not good for beginners, for two main reasons:
A lot of general-purpose Linux guides just don’t work with them, making newbies confused and forcing them to learn a lot of new stuff when they’re not ready
Some software just doesn’t run with immutable distros - for example, most VPNs are not ready
Setting btrfs snapshots on respective directories, so folks can rollback unwanted changes? Great! Tying people’s hands? Might come with complications.
KDE is a brilliant DE for people coming from Windows: it has similar layout, it stands out of your way, and overall has a very easy learning curve. I’ve never seen anyone seriously stuck with setting up anything it has to offer, and yet, it’s very, very customizable. Folks I offered it to either stayed with the defaults and were totally happy with it, or immediately started tuning everything to their liking with no issues whatsoever.
After all, someone who didn’t touch Windows for a while might forget how much convoluted are settings there, and how Windows users are ready to dig through them.
I would argue that it depends a lot on what kind of beginner you have. If you have someone that only uses basic desktop PC functions, like browser, email and maybe stuff like video, photos and documents. You can set it up once, and then have a system that updates itself reliably and has minimal maintenance overhead and isn’t easy to break.
In my experience that system is more robust and gets updated than a generic Debian system.
Of course there are downsides, and those include issues caused by apps running inside flatpak, like system themes are disrespected, opening files in one app, doesn’t respect the xdg-mime settings for the file type and open them in unexpected apps, printer does not work… But those are just bugs, and they need to get reported and fixed.
Yeah I agree and was going to add the same thing. Immutable for newbies is going to cause trouble. I run a non immutable daily driver, but on my point of sale terminal at work - immutable all the way.
There are a few things that are just too extra to get running on that immutable system.
I have the absolute opposite of your opinion :D
Immutable distros are not good for beginners, for two main reasons:
Setting btrfs snapshots on respective directories, so folks can rollback unwanted changes? Great! Tying people’s hands? Might come with complications.
KDE is a brilliant DE for people coming from Windows: it has similar layout, it stands out of your way, and overall has a very easy learning curve. I’ve never seen anyone seriously stuck with setting up anything it has to offer, and yet, it’s very, very customizable. Folks I offered it to either stayed with the defaults and were totally happy with it, or immediately started tuning everything to their liking with no issues whatsoever.
After all, someone who didn’t touch Windows for a while might forget how much convoluted are settings there, and how Windows users are ready to dig through them.
VPN software can work just fine on immutable, you just might need to layer it or install it as a local package.
That doesn’t sound easy enough for a new player
I would argue that it depends a lot on what kind of beginner you have. If you have someone that only uses basic desktop PC functions, like browser, email and maybe stuff like video, photos and documents. You can set it up once, and then have a system that updates itself reliably and has minimal maintenance overhead and isn’t easy to break.
In my experience that system is more robust and gets updated than a generic Debian system.
Of course there are downsides, and those include issues caused by apps running inside flatpak, like system themes are disrespected, opening files in one app, doesn’t respect the xdg-mime settings for the file type and open them in unexpected apps, printer does not work… But those are just bugs, and they need to get reported and fixed.
That’s fair! :)
Yeah I agree and was going to add the same thing. Immutable for newbies is going to cause trouble. I run a non immutable daily driver, but on my point of sale terminal at work - immutable all the way.
There are a few things that are just too extra to get running on that immutable system.