<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title></head><body><div>William, probably just ignore what I said earlier. I've upgraded my Thinkpad from Mint to Kinoite now, and I'm still trying to understand how it works.</div><div><br></div><div>The underlying filesystem is btrfs. The root file system is mounted as a readonly composefs file system. The "OSTree" system, which appears to be a git-like version-controlled package manager, implements a "content-addressable object store", where multiple versions of the same file can exist. These files are immutable and are addressed using their content hashes (which is roughly how I believe git works). Multiple different versions of the same package can coexist in the object store. Multiple releases of the operating system can co-exist in the object store. Metadata is used to describe a particular version, which then corresponds to a particular tree of files and file content (which, note, is immutable). This metadata is interpreted by the composefs file system driver to materialize an immutable tree of files for a specific OS release.</div><div><br></div><div>With this system, you can't directly modify the files of the core operating system in the usual way, eg by editing a text file. The root filesystem is readonly. Instead, the way you modify it is by installing, upgrading, or removing a package (together with its dependencies). (Note that you can edit files in /etc.)</div><div><br></div><div>I am free to install any package I want into the core OS. I'll be installing RPMs, since this is Fedora. The core OS package manager is called rpm-ostree. OSTree keeps track of the history of package installs as a sequence of git-like commits, or layers (like in a container repository).</div><div><br></div><div>Until now I've mainly used Debian based distros: Ubuntu and Mint. My typical habit is to install all sorts of weird software from 3rd party repositories. Eventually the package system somehow gets corrupted and a bunch of things break when I upgrade the operating system. OSTree is supposedly more resistant to this kind of corruption to due the additional structure it keeps track of. One big benefit is that if you install a package and all its dependencies, that change will be applied as a single atomic transaction, either all or nothing. And then you can cleanly revert this change later, without ending up with packages that are no longer referenced and must be garbage collected.</div><div><br></div><div>One thing I managed to do a while back was corrupt the C compiler, clang, after an OS upgrade. I have no way of knowing how this happened, and there's no way to fix it other than wipe the disk and do a clean OS install. The Mint documentation warns you that this can happen, and tells you to do a fresh install as the solution, so it's not just me. It must be inherent in the way that the Debian apt package manager works. The Mint docs say you are particularly at risk when you use 3rd party package repositories.</div><div><br></div><div>With Kinoite, you are encouraged to be choosy about what packages you install in the core OS. For development work, you are recommended to work in a container. You can have multiple containers with different versions of the same languages, and they don't conflict with each other. Upgrading the operating system won't break any of your containers. You can delete a container without modifying the core operating system or interfering with any of the other containers. Kinoite pre-installs a container tool called "toolbox", which allows you to create a custom environment in which you can install packages, then you can run a shell in this container.</div><div><br></div><div>For GUI apps, you are encouraged to install flatpaks, instead of installing apps directly into the core OS (although either will work). The new install of Kinoite came with an old version of Firefox in the core OS. I don't use firefox anymore, because it is riddled with advertising and spyware. I installed LibreWolf and Ungoogled Chromium from flathub, and they work flawlessly. They were a bit buggy on Mint, which had soured me on the use of flatpaks, but on Kinoite, it appears that flatpaks just work.</div><div><br></div><div>Instead of Cinnamon, I'm using KDE. They are very, very similar; both are essentially clones of the classic Windows desktop environment. On my previous Cinnamon install, the desktop magnification feature was buggy and flaky. I rely on this due to my eyesight. On my new system, it is so far rock solid.</div><div><br></div><div>I'll need to use the system for 6 months and go through a few upgrade cycles before I know if I like this, but so far it is my best experience yet for desktop linux.</div><div><br></div><div>The installation process is not beginner friendly, and setting up dual boot correctly in particular is claimed to be tricky, but once installed, it is quite beginner friendly. LIbreOffice is not preinstalled, but it's in the app store, which is pinned to the dock. A beginner would just be installing flatpaks from the app store, and not messing with the command line tools that I mentioned.</div><div><br></div><div>There are other distros that work this way, not just Fedora. Eg, <a href="https://vanillaos.org/">Vanilla OS</a> is debian based. Search for "immutable linux".</div><div><br></div><div>Doug.</div><div><br></div><div>On Fri, Oct 17, 2025, at 8:38 PM, William Park via kwlug-disc wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style=""><div class="qt-moz-cite-prefix"><div><br></div><div>On 2025-10-17 07:04, Doug Moen wrote:</div></div><blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:b28b0bee-eb33-42bc-a1bf-1e5df5dc921e@app.fastmail.com"><div>The system doesn't switch over to the new release until you
reboot, when it will atomically switch over to the new release.
Internally, the atomic switchover doesn't require moving or
copying files, it's just a single file that changes to point to
the new release. If the new release has problems, you can roll
back to the previous release, either in the boot menu, or in the
GUI app store.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Single file? Ahh, mount this "os file" read-only, and then do
overlay. If "os file" can be selected like "kernel" now, then it
would be easier for users. My only concern would be speed.</div><div> <br></div><div> But, having separate /home partition, and 2 root partitions (current
and old) would be same thing, no? Just don't wipe the <b>whole</b> disk, when installing distro. :-)</div><div>_______________________________________________</div><div>kwlug-disc mailing list</div><div>To unsubscribe, send an email to <a href="mailto:kwlug-disc-leave@kwlug.org">kwlug-disc-leave@kwlug.org</a></div><div>with the subject "unsubscribe", or email</div><div><a href="mailto:kwlug-disc-owner@kwlug.org">kwlug-disc-owner@kwlug.org</a> to contact a human being.</div><div><br></div></blockquote><div><br></div></body></html>