this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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For once I feel a little out of touch after I took a bit of a break from following the news to focus on studying, and suddenly everyone is talking about immutable distributions. What are they exactly? What are the benefits and the disadvantages of immutable systems?

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[–] hottari@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago

Immutable distros are locked-down versions of the traditional operating systems. Literally.

In the normal traditional world, you can use the package manager to remove python as a system package and all its dependencies if you so wished. You could rm -rf / too.

With immutable, the whole filesystem is on ro mode. Every system program that a user needs is bundled by the OS and no other changes can be made without breaking the model.

This model of having the OS immutable means less chances of malware getting persistence, high systems availability and reproducible environments since the OS controls the state of the versions available and makes this state available to all users of the distro.