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Cake day: April 15th, 2026
  • TaintTaul@programming.devtoLinux@lemmy.ml•What's the proper way to install every-day CLI tools on immutable distributions like Fedora Bluefin?
    1·
    2 days ago

    If you want to go play with /etc/fstab and you have a concept of "everyday cli tools"an immutable distro is not for you.

    Please don’t conflate stuff.

    On Fedora Atomic[1], it’s possible to:

    • Change the content of /etc/fstab. Heck, the same applies to everything under /etc. The only difference being that a pristine copy is kept at /usr/etc AND the fact that any changes to /etc are being tracked. Said changes can be accessed with ostree admin config-diff.
    • Install CLI apps just fine. Refer to this comment for more details.

    An immutable distro is made for people that do not use a computer but use a browser.

    False. Again.

    While I agree that it’s a very sane recommendation to the technologically inept, it would be a huge disservice to suggest it can’t handle more advanced workloads. Because, quite frankly, there’s very little it actually fails at. And most of its user base would vouch for this. And that list of restrictions/limitations is becoming smaller as we speak…

    1. And probably most distros that are -perhaps erroneously- referred to as “immutable”, though the finer details might be different. ↩︎

  • TaintTaul@programming.devtoLinux@lemmy.ml•What's the proper way to install every-day CLI tools on immutable distributions like Fedora Bluefin?
    1·
    2 days ago

    Just to be very clear: the name “immutable distro” is unfortunately a misnomer. In practice, the restrictions found on so-called “immutable” atomic distros are very tame.

    For example, on Fedora Atomic[1], it’s mostly a paradigm shift. That is, you can achieve (almost) everything that you can on a traditional distro, the only difference being how.

    So, if we would take OP’s query as an example, they are not able to do sudo dnf install vim btop. Instead[2], they have to do brew install vim btop. Additionally, these changes persist, as you’d expect. Please note that this is just one of the ways/methods you can achieve this on Bluefin (and other Fedora Atomic derivatives). Other methods include:

    • Install within a distrobox and export it.
    • Simply layer it.
    • Make a custom image that installs these by default and switch to said custom image.
    • Install as a sysext.

    As you’d expect, each one of these comes with its own set of tradeoffs.

    1. The atomic distro I’m most familiar with. ↩︎

    2. Knowing that they’re on Bluefin, a derivative. ↩︎