A few newbie questions about Silverblue (and immutable systems in general)

[blind-confused (blind)]

@boredsquirrel

Why dont you just use automatic updates?

without getting too much into it, let’s just say, my internet connection is not always available. Thankfully it’s not a situation where it randomly gets interrupted. But I need to limit my downloads during certain hours (without actually disconnecting my computer), and the hours vary. Honestly, doing manual updates in my case is the easiest. But if that introduces some sort of problems, I would really appreciate to know about it. (I’m talking about full updates, not partial, through rpm-ostree cli, and then flatpak cli)

@boredsquirrel

install random stuff in containers,

welp, I guess I’m gonna have to hope that it’ll be fine.
I wonder though, would there be some method to uninstall the app, then safely clear the directory where the problematic buildup of files is, and then reinstall the app?

if not, I might be okay with even reinstalling the system, if the problems happen rarely enough (once a year or less frequently). But… tbh, I’m not even sure what would it look like, if such a buildup of files happens. Would my system just… get slower and laggier overall? Or would just some specific apps get like that?

@boredsquirrel

separate config files in conf.d/a.conf b.conf c.conf

honestly… I know 0 about this.
but if you say this is important… I would appreciate a tutorial, but I’m not gonna insist on it, I understand it’s probably a lot to ask.

[boredsquirrel]

@blind-confused

But if that introduces some sort of problems

No issues. You simply need to use human brain power instead of computer algorithms.

Your case might be possible to automate (like with pingtests for some time) but makes sense to manually.

You can do an alias.

cat >> ~/.bashrc <<EOF

###### MY ALIASES ######
alias update='flatpak update -y && flatpak remove --unused --delete-data -y && rpm-ostree update'
alias off='shutdown now'
alias updown='update && off'
EOF

If you are on GNOME, you can likely just disable automatic updates in GNOME Software to disable them. Otherwise you could remove integrations.

rpm-ostree override remove gnome-software-rpm-ostree

(But note that this slows down updates and causes slight differences between your system and upstream)

If your firmware supports updates via fwumpdmgr you should add that too

fwupdmgr update

[boredsquirrel]

@blind-confused

I wonder though, would there be some method to uninstall the app, then safely clear the directory where the problematic buildup of files is, and then reinstall the app?

Afaik for system (RPM) packages there is no such thing. Which is problematic for sure.

In general you will likely not get issues for the next 5 years or so. Dont worry.

@blind-confused

Would my system just… get slower and laggier overall?

No these would be config files, maybe cache (if programs dont write it to the correct locations) etc.

Normally one programs configs should not affect the other ones configs.

[boredsquirrel]

@blind-confused

I would appreciate a tutorial

Yeah for sure, I will make a separate post on this.

HowTo: change system configs without changing defaults

When installing a system like Fedora Linux, it will use some default configs, which define what rules system programs will follow. These might include default DNS settings like “use this DNS provider”. It could also include configs for networkmanager like done with this proposal, which is also a good example of the method I want to explain. Config files On Linux systems, config files follow a certain structure. Files that are installed with the system will be stored in /usr/lib/, and end up …

[mcdanlj (Michael K Johnson)]

@blind-confused

I was mostly just thinking “if people feel the need to warn you about longer update times when you install more layered packages, then it must be significantly longer, to the point of it being a problem”

I have two laptops that run Silverblue. I have many more layered packages on one than the other. It is true that the layered packages slow down the update a bit. However, I can still use the computer during the updates. Like you, I prefer to do my own updates rather than have them kick off in the background. But I start a terminal, kick off an update, keep working, and then some time after I get a notification that the rpm-ostree command has completed, at my leisure, I close down running programs and reboot. So the extra time it takes is a nothingburger.

Similarly, an update from one Fedora release to the next is just a larger-than-usual update that runs while I’m still using my computer. With Workstation, I had to find time when I wouldn’t need my computer for a while to run the update. Now I can just kick off a rebase in the background and reboot afterward. All I really care about is having a few minutes free afterward to adjust to the changes. For the rebase to 41, that was configuring ptyxis to follow my preferences.

There are plenty of reasons to have a personal preference for any particular program to be layered instead of a flatpak. If you, like me, like running programs from the command line, typing flatpak run org.gnome.Evince is rather more annoying than typing evince. Having to manually go find your existing configuration files and copy them to a new location because of the flatpak sandbox, or reconfigure apps from scratch is annoying. Integration across the flatpak sandbox interface often doesn’t work because sandboxes are intended for isolation. Not wanting to figure out how to use flatseal over and over again is OK. Etc.

We get to choose our tradeoffs. That’s part of the Freedom value. Don’t let anyone shame you for wanting to layer any programs you want.

[boredsquirrel]

Absolutely.

I run atomic desktops on Chromebooks with layered packages, all fine. I use them on my 2012 Thiccpad.

And rebasing to a new distro version is awesome. I tested KDE Plasma 6 like that and it never broke, while KDE Neon was a total mess.

And in my very personal experience, version upgrades with dnf Fedora are not fun either.

Rpm-ostree is the easy way.