One Distro to Rule Them All

Welcome back! Here comes another weekly post.

Quick disclaimer: I am working on integrating post content into the RSS feed, so that you are able to read the post without going to this webpage. Hopefully it will be out at the same time as this post.

My journey started by recovering a 2015 Toshiba Chromebook and seeing what I can possibly do with it. Because ChromeOS did not even support Linux apps at the time, the only way to get any use out of it besides web browsing at a crawling speed was to install custom firmware from MrChromebox. Surprisingly, it worked, and I got started exploring Linux with GalliumOS, a fork of Ubuntu with tweaks for Chromebooks.

I was amazed at how much more the same computer could do, if it only ran a different operating system. The Chromebook ran an Intel Celeron and 4GB of RAM, which is nowhere near impressive, as it was effectively a low-end machine built for web browsing (in 2015). At the same time, Linux went as far as to make Minetest (a clone of Minecraft) playable at astonishingly good framerates.

After that, I decided I’ve dipped my toes in enough, and installed Ubuntu on my main computer. I did so, because I wanted the easiest Linux experience, as my main computer is something I’d be using far more often. I was already aware that Ubuntu has been the GOAT of Linux distributions–if someone heard of a Linux distro, Ubuntu would be it. Learning my way through basic CLI commands, package management, coreutils, and so on, I was now looking to see if grass is greener on the other side.

Going through various desktop environments and distributions, I could not stay on anything in particular for longer than a few months. At that point, I’ve found my workflow to be best on GNOME. This is why I believe GNOME is the most mature DE, despite its shortcomings. Since Ubuntu already had a well-tweaked version of GNOME, coupled with the stability of Debian, I did not see a reason to switch. Especially after overdosing on various new hot distro reviews, I was convinced that sticking with something solid and time-tested was the way to go. However, I randomly stumbled upon Fedora Silverblue.

Fedora never appealed to me, besides its Red Hat origins (I hope we have moved on from the controversy at this point) and the fact that Linus Torvalds uses it. However, here are the strong points of Fedora (aside from the Silverblue part):

• You get a pretty much unfiltered, latest release of GNOME.
• There is a release every 6 months, which is a preview of RHEL.
• It is stable and a “beta” at the same time.
• It is backed by well-paid developers working on Free Software.

Silverblue is Fedora Workstation, but immutable. Immutability is something smartphone operating systems have embraced for a long while, which is what makes them so stable. Root is read-only, updates are applied as Git-like layers, and the OS encourages you to use Flatpak or toolbox (podman wrapper) instead of dnf or rpm, to keep apps containerized and isolated from the system itself. I have become convinced, after having the (dis)pleasure of using “cross-platform” package formats like Snap and AppImage, that Flatpak is simply the best. Overall, I’d say Silverblue is the holy grail of Linux desktop, combining future-focused technologies (Wayland, OSTree, Flatpak) with existing, time-tested ones (GNOME, dnf, etc.)

Lastly, if you are not a fan of GNOME (Silverblue is the GNOME variant, which happens to be the most popular), there are alternative Fedora Workstations built with KDE, Budgie, and even Sway DEs/WMs, going by other names but offering the same level of immutability. Realistically, you can even layer whatever DE you prefer on top of Silverblue, which you can easily roll back from using the underlying technology, OSTree.

If you’d like to learn more about Silverblue, you can check it out here. The homepage effectively summarizes the points I made above. I also highly recommend this guide on how to get the most out of your Silverblue experience.

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