Yeah, of course it is. I use it too for 3D-modeling, image editing and more.

For general purpose, it’s pretty normal. Its’ main advantages really only shine in gaming stuff.

But, to be fair, I don’t know if the tweaks optimised for gaming don’t negatively affect other stuff. I didn’t notice anything yet, but you can’t be sure.

It can be, but for that, I would rather recommend Aurora or Bluefin. They are almost the same, but without gaming stuff.

I use Bazzite on my gaming PC, and Aurora on my media laptop. I’m extremely happy with both.

Just use Bazzite. It updated automatically to F40 just a few hours after upstream, still has all security settings intact and is a joy to use.

Maybe give Aurora a chance.
It’s basically a slightly altered variant of Kinoite with many QoL-changes and additions.

And there’s also Bazzite, which is the same, but for gaming purposes.

They belong to the uBlue-family, which is one of the coolest things ever in the Linux world for me

Now that you’ve convinced me this might be the best course (I only see less problems than other distros would have)

Sometimes, software, especially install scripts for something, are less common for Silverblue, but executing those is very risky anyway and I never felt the need for it.

And, as I said, some things just work differently. But NixOS is one million times worse than that in that regard, so don’t worry about it. You shouldn’t have many issues.

any recommended reading or key concepts I should look into? Any particular flavor(s) you’d point me to first?

I don’t know. In my opinion, my post should cover most stuff concepts and differences.

Don’t worry about it, you’ll use Flatpak anyway most of the time, and it updates itself automatically, so the package manager (rpm-ostree) doesn’t matter much for you.
You can still use your prefered package manager (apt, dnf, etc.) in Distrobox.

Other than that, just don’t worry and use your laptop for whatever you want to do.

And about flavor choice, there are a few options:

• Bazzite is mainly if you game a lot
• Bluefin and Aurora are the same, just in Gnome or KDE. It’s basically Bazzite without gaming stuff
• Secureblue, which features security hardening tweaks
• Wayblue, which is with River, Wayland, and more
• And of course all different DE-spins, e.g. Sway, Budgie, etc.

Just go to the uBlue homepage and see for yourself what appeals to you :)

I don’t know what I should say tbh 😅
For the start, you can read my post about image based distros: https://feddit.de/post/8234416

Imo, Fedora Atomic is NixOS made easy. You can go to the uBlue-builder and modify a custom image if you’re a tinkerer.
NixOS is down-to-top (local config file that defines your host), while uBlue is top-to-bottom (you modify an image, image gets built on GitHub and then shipped to you).
This allows you to fork or create an existing “distro” without having to maintain a whole distro yourself.

Other than that, especially uBlue is extremely user friendly imo.

• It updates itself in the background, updates get staged and applied after you’ve shut down your PC in the evening.
• You can rebase anytime you want to another flavor, e.g. I switched to KDE 6 from Gnome after it came out.
• You have to use containers for everything (mostly Flatpak, but also Distrobox or Nix)
• It’s ultra low maintenance and even more reliable, you can boot into an old image if a new update broke anything or made something buggy
• For a casual user, not distinguishable from regular Fedora
• And much more

I love nothing else more.

Flatpak?

@[email protected]
The difference with Fedora Atomic, which I think you refer to, is that it’s totally open. For example, people started using the OCI containers differently than Fedora intended, which resulted in uBlue and stuff like Bazzite.

Also, no one forces you to use Flatpak. You can still use Distrobox and use Pacman/ APT/ DNF/ whatever you prefer and export your apps that way. It’s just that Flatpak “won” and doesn’t have many drawbacks, and is very convenient. I mostly like them.

And, most importantly, Fedora is the fronteer of innovation.
There were many projects and ideas that failed, but many more succedded (Wayland, image based distros, etc.), and Project Atomic is just one more “testing ground” that is well thought out imo. Therefore people are expecting to “test out” new generation Linux stuff, it’s just part of Fedora. If you don’t like that, use Debian instead.

I can recommend you to give Fedora Atomic a chance, it’s an extremely nice family of distros (e.g. Bluefin/ Aurora, Bazzite, etc.)!

Edit: one more thing is that Fedora is, in contrast to Ubuntu, not controlled by a company. RedHat doesn’t have nearly as much influence as people think, it’s mainly community driven, and therefore choices aren’t (in theory) influenced by $$$

You could give the uBlue builder a shot, which can do exactly that.

But I think NixOS is a better choice for a tinkerer like you :)

Are u sure it didn’t shut down when you were away?
uBlue updates itself, yes, but the updates are staged and need a reboot to apply.

That would be very very hard and unreliable.

Bazzite is more than just “preinstalled Steam”, it has a list of tweaks, optimizations and additions so long you can’t even finish reading it all! 😅
This includes a different kernel, pre-configured containers, and much more.
If you do that on a regular system, configuration drift would quickly destroy any good experience in no time and result in a huge mess.

uBlue provides a solid base distribution (pretty much stock Fedora) and applies exactly your way, but in upstream, and then copies that new image to millions of PCs. By doing that, you can provide many many identical copies that are the same everywhere and always up to date, without the burden of maintaining a whole distro like on Nobara.
The hard and boring work of maintaining a distro is on the shoulders of the Fedora team, and you only have to maintain your own changes.

This seems something with too big of an attack surface.

Not really.

• Most stuff is installed in containers
• The pros of image based distros still apply here in terms of reliability, security, etc.
• Its no more than a few hours away from upstream stock Fedora
• Most apps (Lutris, OBS, etc.) are optional and opt-in, if you just click “next, next, next” in the installer you’ll get a relatively vanilla experience compared to stock Fedora

It’s basically Nobara, but properly done. (If you choose the desktop version)

It gets updates automatically (max one day after upstream Fedora), has everything you want ootb in the first start wizard, is more secure, and much more.

I was very sceptical at first, but after trying it out, I really noticed some minor performance improvements in games and many QoL improvements, e.g. the preinstalled LACT, which allows me to set up fan curves and over-/ underclock my GPU.

Setting up my new PC took me about half an hour maximum.

9/10, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a smooth gaming experience.

What else? :D

I sadly can’t give you any input or help, but I really appreciate your idea and, coincidentally, thought about the exact same thing today 😁

I think a more stable (slower release) variant of Fedora Atomic would be absolutely great for people who don’t like change as much as current Fedora users.

A more conservative variant would be great, especially for companies.
The combination of a stable system (in terms of update frequency and changes) with the unbreakability and deployability would be a huge win.

Imagine being the admin of a small company, class or department and just creating your own uBlue-image with all software your team needs and rebase a dozen PCs to that image. Would be awesome!

I think, currently, Fedora is sometimes too experimental and leading edge, which might be a problem for some people, especially in the business world. Having a more stable variant would be great.

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Stability isn’t the same as unbreakability. It just means the update cycle is prolonged.

If you’re worried about your system breaking, go for Fedora Atomic (Kinoite, Bazzite, uBlue, etc.).
It offers a very recent kernel (-> better hardware support, better performance, etc.) and because it’s an image based distro, you can always roll back, so you’ll always have a working and pretty much unbreakable system.

Debian. I don’t see much benefit of Ubuntu LTS compared to plain old Debian. It’s exactly what you wanted.

Alternatively, AlmaLinux is a good choice if you like Red Hat stuff (RHEL clone), but the difference between Ubuntu LTS and Debian would be almost not noticeable for you I think.

That all sounds great, thanks!
Do you have any tips for an “easy” start, where everything is already pre-configured?