Hello,
Is it possible to use Workstation, but then have the ability to roll back to a previous successful boot (like in atomic desktops)?
I like the rollback ability of Silverblue, but the atomicity makes installing software, printer drivers, etc. a pain. (therefore looking at Workstation).
No, it does not. This is a fallacious statement. Rpm-ostree allows for layering specifically for those cases where and app or driver just needs to be on the host as opposed to being containerized like a flatpak app is. Some would say not to layer anything, but they are entirely missing the point of rpm-ostree and it’s hybrid functionality.
EDIT: Okay, not everything is a hassle. But some things are exhausting, at least for me.
Trying to find the right hw accel for video codecs, the below printer drivers issue.
I’m still trying to find an answer to this.
As an end user, what can I really do to get Fedora to “know about” a particular printer model.
I also thought about this today.
what you are talking about is pretty basic, and actually implemented with snapper and native BTRFS capabilities in OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
Fedora is unimpressive here, not really using BTRFS’ capabilities.
I think a status capability would be great.
dnf deals with package dependencies etc, but also stores a history of all installs (and other actions).
It could list all changes done to the system, and compare them to the used RPM comp (like the workstation one)
Then a reset capability could remove everything that is not in the used RPM comp.
This should work, and would solve 2 use cases that are key arguments pro Atomic Desktops for me, even though these things dont really need to be unique to them.
Atomic Desktops have a bunch of UX issues
I could imagine they just mean the need to reboot?
also, layering extremely increases the time (and I think power consumption) of every following rpm-ostree update.
Keeping the unchanged OS and applying mods every time new is the most reliable way to do this I guess, but you could call this a pain.