wtf is immutable os LOL😂 and why? Why do you need linux, when there's the best OS called Windows 11 Pro?😂 you can ignore this message, you never have strong arguments 😅
I always assumed it was called Vanilla because its a standard base that you can build something more interesting and customized on top of (using their vib image builder tool).
Its rare that a new distro actually feels like bringing something new to the table rather than forking an already existing distro while changing one weird thing and slapping on a custom theme. This might be my next distro hop.
@@rj7250a Yes, but they also don't allow access to anything in / other than /usr so you cannot bork something by editing files in /etc just to add a startup script.
@@rj7250aTimeshift can and has broken. My Arch-based setups had Timeshift Autosnap. I have had cases where it broke either by my own fault (deleting old timeshift before confirming everything is fine), just over time (some updates are problematic and doesn't immediately break stuff), or just bypassed it altogether in the case of something more severe like the GRUB breakage. In the case of Atomic distro, if the update process fails or you didn't boot to the new image, you just... Don't get the update. You boot to the same old update. Plus, you can simply just make your own image, shifting risks to a simple to setup github image builder repo.
My mom is a 60-year old elementary school teacher and she as been using Linux for now than a decade. Moved from Mint to openSUSE. She likes the idea of Vanilla as she is so nagged about updates and wants to do her activities in peace, so this new edition seems to be perfect.
He's not wrong though, because running something in a VM doesn't exactly replicate real-world experiences and can hide things that wouldn't be apparent to people planning on installing it on hardware (the Nvidia X11 thing, for example). Like when I'm testing out new distros or configs, I have an oldish HP 14 laptop that I install it on to see how it works with real-world hardware, for example.
Universal Blue project looks more promising honestly (Aurora & Bazzite distros). Not only does it have KDE and is more popular, but it is also directly based on Fedora Atomic. Meaning if the project gets abandoned you can just rebase your system onto Fedora and drop the Aurora/Bazzite changes without having to reinstall your OS. This is very valuable when it comes to these "small team of volunteers" projects. Still, as someone who loves immutable systems I want VanillaOS to succeed.
Don't underestimate creature comfort features. Just because I can do stuff by hand doesn't mean I don't appreciate the handholding some distros offer. Back when I started on Linux in 1998, I had a book and several hours to tinker. Now I have stuff to do and little time. So I'm fine using Mint as my daily driver, it does all I need without getting in the way.
I tend to agree. It's been 14 years I use linux, I'm still running on ubuntu like a n00b for the everyday tasks😂 And running docker containers for serious stuff (development go/js/php/python/c++/CUDA)
100% agree -- as someone with ADHD, on a good day I have enough emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility to research and puzzle my way through some arcane technology problem. Hyperfixation might even help on such occasions. But on a bad day, frustration will easily get the better of me. So my daily driver needs to be a nice, difficult-to-break distro that holds my hand a little.
That‘s just irresponsible. What are you going to do if the 4 people this project relies on to exist get hit by a bus? Transition your customer machines to Debian Sid which this is based on? Or what if they do poor quality control? You have no control over when updates are pushed to customers, wouldn’t you want to internally test updates before pushing them to customers? Just built your own OCI images at GitHub based on an actual stable distribution channel like fedora. Ublue for example has templates that you can easily adjust, add your own apps to and actually test before pushing them to customers. I’d use use the oldstable Fedora(current version - 1), that still gets security fixes but has all actual bugs fixed and will give you a smooth transition to newer versions. You also get to pick the desktop environment. I wouldn’t choose gnome, your customers will pimp it via extensions to get a desktop they are used to and yell at you when the extensions break due to updates, which they will. Here: github.com/ublue-os/image-template
Curious, why this and not, say, Bluefin or Endless OS which are more established? I do know VanillaOS has a company backing it, but I am not aware of any support process/plan yet.
@@ferdievanschalkwyk1669 Hm, to be honest, I was interested a bit when I heard they switched to Debian, but in the end it was a staggered Debian Sid, ala Manjaro with Arch, so it feels like a weird middle ground between Ubuntu and actual Debian.
the way VanillaOS is right now, i feel like it'd be a fantastic tool for linux courses or sysadmin degrees to teach their students how different package managers work
Aside from a minor gotcha this has been my favorite district so far. (there’s basically a three stage installer, so you’ll end up selecting your language and keyboard layout three times for some reason. It looks like you’re done setting it up after the second stage, but it’s a false summit. Do the last set up wizard, and then you’re done.) I fully didn’t expect this to work on my especially picky, old laptop, but it’s going strong! Added bonus, my laptop finally doesn’t sound like it’s trying to take off at all times, only sometimes. It’s fantastic.
I'm new to Linux and use Ubuntu on my laptop. Id love to just install everything even android apps without all the work around. I do understand why it works like this but I'm hoping one day it is easier and we could install anything without all the work around. I am just a consumer of Linux, I don't use it for coding or anything like that. I am a half convert from windows. I feel that if there were a distro that would, out of the box, would just install anything without the extra steps Linux would grow and become a great OS that could really contend with mac and windows. I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense I just know that windows converts sometimes run into these issues. I myself like to tinker and will give anything a try. I'm just speaking for those out there that just want out of the box ease. I could have easily been someone like that.
Have you looked into Bazzite yet? It has a similar paradigm to this distro, but also it's pre-configured for everyday use. I have been running it rather smoothly for the last few months.
Basically it's like how the Android seamless updates work. And you do have a gen z audience here, but you didn't had to do the tiktok style of 2 videos thingy 😂, my attention span is not as broken as anyone else is!
I'm a happy user of Debian stable, the only time it's given me grief was after I accidentally turned off my laptop halfway through an apt full-upgrade. That was entirely my fault of course, but it did make me more interested in immutable distros with an A/B partition system. Vanilla OS 2 seems like a good one to try, so thanks for making a video on it :)
Thanks Nick to keep us up to date. A really interesting distro. I run everything on my Tuxedo computers, me but he is really testing out how much we follow and listening as he uses the Slimbook as testbed for Vanilla OS 2.0.
This is a good approach, even though using Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite you can do A/B/C/D/E/F/G/... etc, Because you can always pin the deployments you want/need to keep.
Vanilla Os is for Debian like Bluefin is for Fedora🙂 I been using Bluefin since the beginning of this year, very cool project, most rock solid experience that I have on Linux so far, i think that “atomic” type of distros are the future of Linux.
Been the same on the Bazzite side of things. The same team is behind Bluefin and they share a lot in common. I'm sold on atomic/immutable now that things like distrobox and apx exist
Just gave a look at it myself on this old laptop I repaired for better or for worse, I loved its first impressions, theres a couple issues searching for locales but other than that the fact you can choose what apps are installed is a huge plus for this sort of OS, and it installs like Id expect I would install chromeos (Ive never done it but nearly that polished). That update system is awesome, Id replace Timeshift for that
Thanks for doing this video Nick! I don't use/need an immutable distro myself, but I've been following VanillaOS closely for the last 2 years as I think it's a good project to have around for those that need what they offer. Great video mate, keep up the great work and kudos to all the VanillaOS devs and volunteers for making this a reality and wish you all the best in the future!!!
MS Office using Waydroid seems like a good proposition. I wished you would have included it here. (I know it is not the real motive of this video, but you were showing some android apps, so why not.)
I like the way Windows 11 apples the updates on new laptop computers. It detects the usage hours (you can set it manually) and then as soon as you close the lid of the laptop the PC doesn't suspend, but it installs the updates. For example, when I close the laptop and go to sleep, (while on power) the laptop applies the updates and reboots finishes the update and suspends. The next day it's ready to use, I don't remember the last time I manually installed an update.
@retrocomputing I personally was never elected. I don't run programs in kernel mode. Besides that, Linux was elected too, a few months back. It's not a competition. Microsoft applies automatically the updates after they've been tested by a lot of enthusiasts. I am not one of them anymore. But the stability is very good lately. They focus so much on AI(witch we don't get in EU), so they leave the os nice and stable :)
@@godtable it's Microsoft who pushed the crowdstrike update. They hadn't tested it. I also had a couple of updates that bricked a windows PC, it depended on hardware.
It sounds really annoying tbh. I like my laptop to resume with just about as much battery as what I put it away with. Also, what if you just shut your laptop and throw it into a backpack? Sounds like a heat management nightmare, and I've heard Windows users talk about coming back to a hot laptop and dead battery
As a dev who relies almost exclusively on docker running on ubuntu for all my projects, I think I'll try this vanilla OS2. Only the part about nvidia worries me, not for the 3D stuff (I always buy a CPU with a integrated graphic card) but for the CUDA
I actually think that VanillaOS is a worthy consideration for new Linux users and non-tech-savvy individuals (especially for users with basic needs who can live completely off of the web browser, Flatpaks, and Android APKs). The "smart updates" feature strikes me as a big selling point for regular users who dont want to deal with managing system updates themselves (but also don't want to be interrupted by automatic updates [yes, I know offline updates exist, but they are still an inferior solution]), and the A/B partition scheme is a simple but fantastic way to ensure that a broken update doesn't leave them stranded (as long as it's easy/intuitive to boot into the inactive slot). VanillaOS is exactly the kind of distro I'd want to put on our family computer, so if it turns out to be as solid as I hope it is, that might be what I do when Windows 10 gets discontinued.
Exactly why I'm considering using one such distro for my 67-yr old mother's PC. She would only use it for stuff like Facebook, UA-cam, internet and movies, stuff that Flathub covers just fine and there's much less chance for her to break something on an immutable distro, not to mention ease of maintenance...
The one thing I'd be worried about with the port/starboard partitioning (which is pretty clever) is if one an updated partition migrates config but is broken somehow and you roll back to an older OS that chokes on a migrated and now incompatible config.
@@nukblack6509 Actually not. That's the interesting part. My computer (about 10 years old) is very modern with all its specs, but it seems that my motherboard is kind of outdated.
Vanilla OS reminds me of Qubes OS, just with containers instead of xen virtual machines, and with a nicer GUI but less control. As you said, this isn't fit for a beginner, but seems like a good introduction to compartmentalization that a techy user would find nice, while Qubes OS brings a lot more control but also a few more struggles depending how you look at it.
Wow: I thought I had a great idea for a distro. I jotted down things to do with A-B immutable, security, DE / UI, UX standards, package management etc. It seems like Vanilla have done half of it already ! I would like to see this with Cosmic desktop in the future as it matures. It seems there is no ARM arch available at the moment. With ARM desktops & laptops coming down the line it would be good to see ARM arch supported. Things are heading in the right direction on Linux thanks to Vanilla. I will be having a look at this soon. Thanks for the video Nick.
i wish we can also instal windows apps like the way we can with android, even tho it is understandable that android is linux under the hood, but having a graphical installer for windows apps and maybe games ( which are on CD and not steam ) will be great and defintely increase the linux users as they can run there favorite app from linux as well also love the idea of apx now i can run kali tools and do some pentesting from a daily drive OS
I think this is the distro I'd recommend to people who just want to get away from Windows and who aren't major linux nerds. Immutable distros are the best for "everything just works", and this brings all the tools to smooth out the usual immutable wrinkles
3:26 That's what I tell myself is the reason why I play Genshin, but I think I'm just in love with the looks (looks at my hundreds of screenshots in two months) and a bit interested in the plot XD
hmmm... 🤔interesting. my only concern is a second system partition taking up extra hard drive space. from what I can see in this video, that was an extra 20gb of disk space and that's a very useful amount of space.
What I think is that immutable distributions are a great idea that is still in its infancy, so I will closely follow these projects for when they are working better, more stable, and easier than a traditional Linux system.
"Cowardice is our way" Reminds me of that time when a Google search for "French military victories" resulted in the suggestion "Did you mean French military defeats?"
Modern Android devices use the A/B partition style of updates. It's not that hard to understand. Instead of updating over your current partition and bricking the device in case something fails (which happened a lot before A/B partitioning) it just updates on a separate partition, and once it checks everything is ok, you'll get into the new version once you reboot
Hm.. looks definitely interesting. Disqualifies itself for me by using gnome, but I'll definitely keep an eye on it to see how it progresses and what might come from it. Really enjoy these distros that try to do something new or polish up existing concepts to the next level.
Makes me wish I had a third machine to test this! Still haven't felt comfortable jumping to an immutable distro, and would love to be on Debian for third-party software support.
Through what I experienced last night: Installing some applications through the software store require a reboot before they will run.. and so far every individual deb package I installed all had to be installed through the terminal in order to actually install. Sideloading deb packages through Files said it installed but nothing ever showed up. Lastly the distro uses Gnome, as mentioned, and does not ship with Gnome Tweaks. You can install Tweaks through the terminal (doesn't show up in the software store) but the tweaks you make through it only effect certain elements of the OS. Turning off workspace view at start up, and some window settings are almost global, everything else like fonts, icons, cursors etc did not seem to have any effect - guess those would have to be changed manually once you figure out how to make the system partition writable..
To be frank I see little point in immutable distros when btrfs snapshots already exist. Being able to install packages from different distros is pretty nice in the hands of power users though!
@@AlanTwoRingsthey are if your root filesystem only ever gets mounted read only, which *literally* makes it immutable. Microos from opensuse uses that approach, instead of writing changes to a different partition they write it to a fresh copy of your current systems snapshot and set that as default for next boot, to be mounted read only ofc. In effect the system jumps from one state to the next, atomically, while the system itself is immutable within a state.
im on ubuntu for about a month and having a blast, i've considered going to endeavour os because pacman seems easier to use than the billion different package managers on ubuntu but my bluetooth didnt work :(
As a Linux noob the ability to install any package type to my system sounds very attractive, ngl. I might try this, but I wonder which would be better for me; Kubuntu with its wide user base, the community support that affords you, or the possibility of an "unbreakable" OS like this?
I'm thinking about switching to it, I use Fedora 40 and I develop sometimes, so it would be a good idea. Waydroid is also nice because I could probably return to Roblox exploiting again. Looks like it meets my needs anyways. If I can run VSCode, GNOME Boxes, Syncthing, Armcord or Vesktop, GNOME Builder, and other stuff that I use, then it works.
Thank you for the recommendations. I tried blendOS first and to be honest this is pretty much alpha-quality work. It isn't that configurable, it doesn't let you roll back to a previous state (or it's not documented), the yaml parser crashes at every little change, the wiki is one page long and contains information about features that don't exist, and so on. If this project would still be worked on for one year or so, then I guess it might be serviceable. I also tried installing Vanilla OS on a USB drive but the install isn't bootable 😅 I think the devs don't check if the drive is external and as such they don't set the necessary Grub flags for this to work. I may try it in the future but I'm surely not going to install it in on my fixed drive.
Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#
wtf is immutable os LOL😂 and why? Why do you need linux, when there's the best OS called Windows 11 Pro?😂 you can ignore this message, you never have strong arguments 😅
Review carbonOS.
Kinda funny how the distro called Vanilla OS is one of the least vanilla distros.
Standard Ubuntu would probably be Vanilla from a pure popularity standpoint desktop-wise.
@@smashed_penguin it depends on what you consider vanilla, I would say that Debian or Fedora are more vanilla
@@smashed_penguinDebian is vanilla
Makes sense, vanilla combines favourable with almost any sweet taste.
I always assumed it was called Vanilla because its a standard base that you can build something more interesting and customized on top of (using their vib image builder tool).
Its rare that a new distro actually feels like bringing something new to the table rather than forking an already existing distro while changing one weird thing and slapping on a custom theme. This might be my next distro hop.
If you like vanilla os check out universal blue
Immutable distros are just a regular distro with Timeshift backups. Change my mind.
@@rj7250a Yes, but they also don't allow access to anything in / other than /usr so you cannot bork something by editing files in /etc just to add a startup script.
@@rj7250a If you're that braindead and delusional, there's literally nothing anybody can say to change your mind.
@@rj7250aTimeshift can and has broken. My Arch-based setups had Timeshift Autosnap. I have had cases where it broke either by my own fault (deleting old timeshift before confirming everything is fine), just over time (some updates are problematic and doesn't immediately break stuff), or just bypassed it altogether in the case of something more severe like the GRUB breakage.
In the case of Atomic distro, if the update process fails or you didn't boot to the new image, you just... Don't get the update. You boot to the same old update. Plus, you can simply just make your own image, shifting risks to a simple to setup github image builder repo.
Finally, a Linux distro with Linux subsystem for Linux
You can have it with distrobox on any distro, they added a front end which is extremely helpful
Turtle OS: Linux all the way down.
That's the best explanation of Vanilla OS so far
They just announced they fixed the Nvidia issues.
Amazing timing 😂
Let's go
really
Nice!
Nvidia is still not supported in waydroid for hardware acceleration, so only most simple apps
Thanks for covering, nice video 💛
Chat is this real
@@strtale 🤣🤣🤌
@@strtale it is real i fear
@vanillaos amazing project btw keep it up!!
Nice distro mates. I'll give it a shot when I am no longer a noob and understand the intricacies of the distro.
My mom is a 60-year old elementary school teacher and she as been using Linux for now than a decade. Moved from Mint to openSUSE. She likes the idea of Vanilla as she is so nagged about updates and wants to do her activities in peace, so this new edition seems to be perfect.
THIS is exactly why I prefer immutable distros with atomic updates.
Your mom is awesome!
You can set up a cronjob to just automatically do them, stuff could break but it should be fine if she's not installing a lot of packages.
@@RexRex-n5t Vanilla OS already has that.
That Trackmania thing confused me for a second, but then I realized what you were doing and literally lolled. Thanks so much for that.
“Because running in a VM is for cowards” I’ve never laughed so hard. I need this on a shirt.
He's not wrong though, because running something in a VM doesn't exactly replicate real-world experiences and can hide things that wouldn't be apparent to people planning on installing it on hardware (the Nvidia X11 thing, for example).
Like when I'm testing out new distros or configs, I have an oldish HP 14 laptop that I install it on to see how it works with real-world hardware, for example.
@@Ebalosus true, sometimes the vm will be better supported (driver wise) than bare metal.
its not that funny you sperg
Real Men don't use VMs (perfect for tees)
No honkai impact players were harmed while making of this video
i did not get the joke :(
@skelebro9999 it's a mobile gotcha game
@@VektrumSimulacrum Gotcha, lol fitting
himeko was harmed
@@VektrumSimulacrum isn't it two games? genshin and honkai star wars or something
7:30 the gen z joke really got me 😂
Universal Blue project looks more promising honestly (Aurora & Bazzite distros). Not only does it have KDE and is more popular, but it is also directly based on Fedora Atomic. Meaning if the project gets abandoned you can just rebase your system onto Fedora and drop the Aurora/Bazzite changes without having to reinstall your OS. This is very valuable when it comes to these "small team of volunteers" projects.
Still, as someone who loves immutable systems I want VanillaOS to succeed.
Don't forget to mention Bluefin, as is a really important part of Ublue that led to the creation of Aurora itself.
@@Robotta my question is fedora vs debian here then, as the immutable bit is the same.
Don't underestimate creature comfort features. Just because I can do stuff by hand doesn't mean I don't appreciate the handholding some distros offer. Back when I started on Linux in 1998, I had a book and several hours to tinker. Now I have stuff to do and little time. So I'm fine using Mint as my daily driver, it does all I need without getting in the way.
I tend to agree. It's been 14 years I use linux, I'm still running on ubuntu like a n00b for the everyday tasks😂
And running docker containers for serious stuff (development go/js/php/python/c++/CUDA)
100% agree -- as someone with ADHD, on a good day I have enough emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility to research and puzzle my way through some arcane technology problem. Hyperfixation might even help on such occasions. But on a bad day, frustration will easily get the better of me. So my daily driver needs to be a nice, difficult-to-break distro that holds my hand a little.
as a gen z, somehow i feel this already, messing around your system and then it broke is not fun at all, Mint is so wonderful
Honestly? I basically lost all motivation to do things by hands after I got a job, my time is too scarce 😢
@@evertonc1448 Errands stack up fast, eh?
Vanilla OS 2.0 is practically a different distro compared to 22.10 with the amount of changes and improvements it has lol
Damn, confirmed that Nick is a trackmaniac 7:38 lmao
it's really big in France (and a great game)
We are seriously considering this as our standard customer Linux Desktop OS for our MSP business
That‘s just irresponsible. What are you going to do if the 4 people this project relies on to exist get hit by a bus? Transition your customer machines to Debian Sid which this is based on? Or what if they do poor quality control? You have no control over when updates are pushed to customers, wouldn’t you want to internally test updates before pushing them to customers?
Just built your own OCI images at GitHub based on an actual stable distribution channel like fedora. Ublue for example has templates that you can easily adjust, add your own apps to and actually test before pushing them to customers. I’d use use the oldstable Fedora(current version - 1), that still gets security fixes but has all actual bugs fixed and will give you a smooth transition to newer versions. You also get to pick the desktop environment. I wouldn’t choose gnome, your customers will pimp it via extensions to get a desktop they are used to and yell at you when the extensions break due to updates, which they will.
Here: github.com/ublue-os/image-template
Curious, why this and not, say, Bluefin or Endless OS which are more established? I do know VanillaOS has a company backing it, but I am not aware of any support process/plan yet.
@@FengLengshun we prefer the Debian base, which is what we already use extensively on the server side.
@@ferdievanschalkwyk1669 Hm, to be honest, I was interested a bit when I heard they switched to Debian, but in the end it was a staggered Debian Sid, ala Manjaro with Arch, so it feels like a weird middle ground between Ubuntu and actual Debian.
the way VanillaOS is right now, i feel like it'd be a fantastic tool for linux courses or sysadmin degrees to teach their students how different package managers work
Aside from a minor gotcha this has been my favorite district so far. (there’s basically a three stage installer, so you’ll end up selecting your language and keyboard layout three times for some reason. It looks like you’re done setting it up after the second stage, but it’s a false summit. Do the last set up wizard, and then you’re done.) I fully didn’t expect this to work on my especially picky, old laptop, but it’s going strong! Added bonus, my laptop finally doesn’t sound like it’s trying to take off at all times, only sometimes. It’s fantastic.
You also have the installer crash on you for no reason before having to reopen it to get it to finish?
Fun Fact for whoever didn't know: this A/B system for updates is actually also used by Android for its system updates!
I'm new to Linux and use Ubuntu on my laptop. Id love to just install everything even android apps without all the work around. I do understand why it works like this but I'm hoping one day it is easier and we could install anything without all the work around. I am just a consumer of Linux, I don't use it for coding or anything like that. I am a half convert from windows. I feel that if there were a distro that would, out of the box, would just install anything without the extra steps Linux would grow and become a great OS that could really contend with mac and windows. I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense I just know that windows converts sometimes run into these issues. I myself like to tinker and will give anything a try. I'm just speaking for those out there that just want out of the box ease. I could have easily been someone like that.
Have you looked into Bazzite yet? It has a similar paradigm to this distro, but also it's pre-configured for everyday use. I have been running it rather smoothly for the last few months.
"I know you'r playing this for the plot" La meilleure sortie de l'année :D, je ne vais pas m'en remettre !! Au top, comme d'hab ;)
7:38 missed opportunity to include SuperTuxKart in the bottom video
Thanks for the video, I've been waiting for Vanilla OS 2. Now I have something to do this evening.
Basically it's like how the Android seamless updates work. And you do have a gen z audience here, but you didn't had to do the tiktok style of 2 videos thingy 😂, my attention span is not as broken as anyone else is!
Same, I have "regular" ADHD not Massive Brainrot ADHD
@@cacomeat7385a short attention span or "brainrot" isn't ADHD
As a power user, I like that this is an option for certain installations, but not on my work / private machines. Tumbleweed FTW.
If you want to see another immutable distro. You should check out the Universal Blue project and their Bluefin Aurora and Bazzite spins
4:25 holy crap, that pun landed perfectly on my Polish sense of humor.
The entire point is the end user should not even think about the os and just use the app space like a bootlocked android.
I'm a happy user of Debian stable, the only time it's given me grief was after I accidentally turned off my laptop halfway through an apt full-upgrade. That was entirely my fault of course, but it did make me more interested in immutable distros with an A/B partition system. Vanilla OS 2 seems like a good one to try, so thanks for making a video on it :)
Oh wow. This is the first time in a really, really long time, that I actually consider adding another distribution to my setup.
It's a very impressive distro, really like their work
Thanks Nick to keep us up to date. A really interesting distro. I run everything on my Tuxedo computers, me but he is really testing out how much we follow and listening as he uses the Slimbook as testbed for Vanilla OS 2.0.
Congratulations: fastfetch just got new vanilla OS 2 logo for next releasing fastfetch
My weekend : (chuckles) I'm in danger
1:06 A / B partitioning while using BtrFs already!? Ooof ...
But while you're at it. Any chance we get a openSUSE Aeon or Kalpa video?
That confused me too. But then the current root fs needs to be mounted RO, and I don't think you can create a snapshot unless it's RW.
This is a good approach, even though using Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite you can do A/B/C/D/E/F/G/... etc, Because you can always pin the deployments you want/need to keep.
@@cavvieira Not all directories are RO, some are RO and others are RW (ex: "home" directory).
yeah, I believe they use LVM 5hin provisioning instead of BTRFS snaphots and subvolumes 🤷
@@themedlebI'm pretty sure home is in its own partition. Wouldn't make sense to have it in the same A/B scheme.
Vanilla Os is for Debian like Bluefin is for Fedora🙂 I been using Bluefin since the beginning of this year, very cool project, most rock solid experience that I have on Linux so far, i think that “atomic” type of distros are the future of Linux.
Been the same on the Bazzite side of things. The same team is behind Bluefin and they share a lot in common. I'm sold on atomic/immutable now that things like distrobox and apx exist
fedora vs debian (bluefin vs vanilla) ?
Just gave a look at it myself on this old laptop I repaired for better or for worse, I loved its first impressions, theres a couple issues searching for locales but other than that the fact you can choose what apps are installed is a huge plus for this sort of OS, and it installs like Id expect I would install chromeos (Ive never done it but nearly that polished). That update system is awesome, Id replace Timeshift for that
For a second, I thought OS/2 was coming back and that made me very happy 😌
Me too!
I understood that reference
-Captain America
me too. At first I thought, what does the OS/2 has f... to do with linux ?
Thanks for doing this video Nick! I don't use/need an immutable distro myself, but I've been following VanillaOS closely for the last 2 years as I think it's a good project to have around for those that need what they offer. Great video mate, keep up the great work and kudos to all the VanillaOS devs and volunteers for making this a reality and wish you all the best in the future!!!
I still think immutable distros are best for businesses.
Nick - the shade your through Gen Z and Gen A was savage - funny and True - but savage...
MS Office using Waydroid seems like a good proposition. I wished you would have included it here. (I know it is not the real motive of this video, but you were showing some android apps, so why not.)
I like the way Windows 11 apples the updates on new laptop computers. It detects the usage hours (you can set it manually) and then as soon as you close the lid of the laptop the PC doesn't suspend, but it installs the updates. For example, when I close the laptop and go to sleep, (while on power) the laptop applies the updates and reboots finishes the update and suspends. The next day it's ready to use, I don't remember the last time I manually installed an update.
Yeah that worked great with crowdstrike
@retrocomputing I personally was never elected. I don't run programs in kernel mode. Besides that, Linux was elected too, a few months back. It's not a competition. Microsoft applies automatically the updates after they've been tested by a lot of enthusiasts. I am not one of them anymore. But the stability is very good lately. They focus so much on AI(witch we don't get in EU), so they leave the os nice and stable :)
@@godtable it's Microsoft who pushed the crowdstrike update. They hadn't tested it. I also had a couple of updates that bricked a windows PC, it depended on hardware.
It sounds really annoying tbh. I like my laptop to resume with just about as much battery as what I put it away with. Also, what if you just shut your laptop and throw it into a backpack? Sounds like a heat management nightmare, and I've heard Windows users talk about coming back to a hot laptop and dead battery
@@retrocomputingThis isn't true. Crowdstrike pushed the Crowdstrike update.
i once asked for Riesling in a restaurant when I visited my friend in France :D Well, the waiter let's say was not very happy about that :D
Thanks nick! Looks really great flexible and solid distro
As a dev who relies almost exclusively on docker running on ubuntu for all my projects, I think I'll try this vanilla OS2.
Only the part about nvidia worries me, not for the 3D stuff (I always buy a CPU with a integrated graphic card) but for the CUDA
Might consider installing this, looks pretty cool
Vanilla OS is looking CLEAN
I actually think that VanillaOS is a worthy consideration for new Linux users and non-tech-savvy individuals (especially for users with basic needs who can live completely off of the web browser, Flatpaks, and Android APKs). The "smart updates" feature strikes me as a big selling point for regular users who dont want to deal with managing system updates themselves (but also don't want to be interrupted by automatic updates [yes, I know offline updates exist, but they are still an inferior solution]), and the A/B partition scheme is a simple but fantastic way to ensure that a broken update doesn't leave them stranded (as long as it's easy/intuitive to boot into the inactive slot).
VanillaOS is exactly the kind of distro I'd want to put on our family computer, so if it turns out to be as solid as I hope it is, that might be what I do when Windows 10 gets discontinued.
Exactly why I'm considering using one such distro for my 67-yr old mother's PC. She would only use it for stuff like Facebook, UA-cam, internet and movies, stuff that Flathub covers just fine and there's much less chance for her to break something on an immutable distro, not to mention ease of maintenance...
bro! lmao that "let me explain" part cracked me up.
I may actually try this distro out. In theory the idea is fantastic.
Great video. As a Linux noob, I enjoyed learning about Vanilla OS. 😊
7:39 don't be sorry about that it was PERFECT! Hahahaha
The one thing I'd be worried about with the port/starboard partitioning (which is pretty clever) is if one an updated partition migrates config but is broken somehow and you roll back to an older OS that chokes on a migrated and now incompatible config.
7:38
This Millennial immediately got distracted. I watched it a few times and still missed everything
Is the nvidia 555 driver available in the repos? also can you force wayland if the latest nvidia driver is installed?
Looks like a brilliant system, considering the versatility 👍🏻
Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜
Last time i tried it, it literally could not install my wifi drivers, never looked into it. Currently running fedora kde 40. Happier than ever.
11:13 I don't get why it's better. Distrobox can also export apps as a .desktop file which are findable by your app launcher of choice
I'm gonna hop into this gateway distro to NixOS soon...
I would really like to switch to it, but it does not seem to support Legacy BIOS 😢
Hahaha legacy bios ? are you using a computer from stone age?
@@nukblack6509 a lot of people use linux to give their old hardware a new life you know that right?
@@nukblack6509 Actually not. That's the interesting part. My computer (about 10 years old) is very modern with all its specs, but it seems that my motherboard is kind of outdated.
@@jonaspucher4086modern and ten years old tech does not match.the best GPU was 780 or titan
@@duckmeat4674 For a Linux machine it's actually modern
Vanilla OS reminds me of Qubes OS, just with containers instead of xen virtual machines, and with a nicer GUI but less control. As you said, this isn't fit for a beginner, but seems like a good introduction to compartmentalization that a techy user would find nice, while Qubes OS brings a lot more control but also a few more struggles depending how you look at it.
Wow: I thought I had a great idea for a distro. I jotted down things to do with A-B immutable, security, DE / UI, UX standards, package management etc.
It seems like Vanilla have done half of it already !
I would like to see this with Cosmic desktop in the future as it matures.
It seems there is no ARM arch available at the moment. With ARM desktops & laptops coming down the line it would be good to see ARM arch supported.
Things are heading in the right direction on Linux thanks to Vanilla.
I will be having a look at this soon. Thanks for the video Nick.
i wish we can also instal windows apps like the way we can with android, even tho it is understandable that android is linux under the hood, but having a graphical installer for windows apps and maybe games ( which are on CD and not steam ) will be great and defintely increase the linux users as they can run there favorite app from linux as well
also love the idea of apx now i can run kali tools and do some pentesting from a daily drive OS
I've been waiting for this release for a long time, thanks for the review 😎👍
That gen alpha joke was hilarious 😂
Holy Penguins!! Linux Subsystem within Linux? I didn't know this was a thing! 🐧
Neat. I'll try it. Thank you.
I think this is the distro I'd recommend to people who just want to get away from Windows and who aren't major linux nerds. Immutable distros are the best for "everything just works", and this brings all the tools to smooth out the usual immutable wrinkles
3:26 That's what I tell myself is the reason why I play Genshin, but I think I'm just in love with the looks (looks at my hundreds of screenshots in two months) and a bit interested in the plot XD
hmmm... 🤔interesting. my only concern is a second system partition taking up extra hard drive space. from what I can see in this video, that was an extra 20gb of disk space and that's a very useful amount of space.
7:30 - 7:47 I understood your explanation up to 7:47, but I couldn't understand after that (joke)
4:27 Man you are just on fire today. 😂
What I think is that immutable distributions are a great idea that is still in its infancy, so I will closely follow these projects for when they are working better, more stable, and easier than a traditional Linux system.
i like your sense of humor
"Cowardice is our way"
Reminds me of that time when a Google search for "French military victories" resulted in the suggestion "Did you mean French military defeats?"
Modern Android devices use the A/B partition style of updates. It's not that hard to understand. Instead of updating over your current partition and bricking the device in case something fails (which happened a lot before A/B partitioning) it just updates on a separate partition, and once it checks everything is ok, you'll get into the new version once you reboot
That TrackMania joke almost had me in tears, good job.
Hm.. looks definitely interesting. Disqualifies itself for me by using gnome, but I'll definitely keep an eye on it to see how it progresses and what might come from it. Really enjoy these distros that try to do something new or polish up existing concepts to the next level.
I was looking forward to this video, thanks!
7:35 I just barely count as Gen Z myself, and that genuinely made me laugh xDD
Don't worry, I won't forget Napoleon 1 and 2.
But your tanks had mirrors, to see how the battlefield slowly got smaller 😂
Nice review 😇
I like the new kind of humor you're handling.
Makes me wish I had a third machine to test this! Still haven't felt comfortable jumping to an immutable distro, and would love to be on Debian for third-party software support.
Through what I experienced last night: Installing some applications through the software store require a reboot before they will run.. and so far every individual deb package I installed all had to be installed through the terminal in order to actually install. Sideloading deb packages through Files said it installed but nothing ever showed up. Lastly the distro uses Gnome, as mentioned, and does not ship with Gnome Tweaks. You can install Tweaks through the terminal (doesn't show up in the software store) but the tweaks you make through it only effect certain elements of the OS. Turning off workspace view at start up, and some window settings are almost global, everything else like fonts, icons, cursors etc did not seem to have any effect - guess those would have to be changed manually once you figure out how to make the system partition writable..
To be frank I see little point in immutable distros when btrfs snapshots already exist.
Being able to install packages from different distros is pretty nice in the hands of power users though!
While i really enjoy BTRFS snapshots, its not exactly seamless or super user friendly
CoW snapshots allow you to roll-back, but that's where the similarity ends. They're not the same as having an immutable root filesystem.
@@AlanTwoRingsthey are if your root filesystem only ever gets mounted read only, which *literally* makes it immutable. Microos from opensuse uses that approach, instead of writing changes to a different partition they write it to a fresh copy of your current systems snapshot and set that as default for next boot, to be mounted read only ofc. In effect the system jumps from one state to the next, atomically, while the system itself is immutable within a state.
@@sebastianbauer4768 well of course, but that's not what the comment I was replying to was talking about
im on ubuntu for about a month and having a blast, i've considered going to endeavour os because pacman seems easier to use than the billion different package managers on ubuntu but my bluetooth didnt work :(
Don't worry, I won't forget Napoleon 1 and 2
But your tanks had mirrors, to see how the bfield slowly got smaller 😂
Nice review 😇
As a Linux noob the ability to install any package type to my system sounds very attractive, ngl. I might try this, but I wonder which would be better for me; Kubuntu with its wide user base, the community support that affords you, or the possibility of an "unbreakable" OS like this?
I had a good laugh with this one, well done xD
Also why the neko pose at 7:57 ??????
What is a neko pose?
@@TheLinuxEXP You shall be cursed ua-cam.com/video/W3yNvLwMRhs/v-deo.html
@@TheLinuxEXPCute Cat hands
Average Uwuntu user be like:
based Nick goated with the neko pose
I'm thinking about switching to it, I use Fedora 40 and I develop sometimes, so it would be a good idea.
Waydroid is also nice because I could probably return to Roblox exploiting again.
Looks like it meets my needs anyways. If I can run VSCode, GNOME Boxes, Syncthing, Armcord or Vesktop, GNOME Builder, and other stuff that I use, then it works.
7:39 lmao that killed me. I think this implementation is similar to modern android devices
Looks like VanillaOS will be my recommendation to people. It looks amazing!
Thanks for looking into this release, interesting, but I prefer a regular system with snapshots like Fedora on Btrfs with Snapper.
Thank you for the recommendations. I tried blendOS first and to be honest this is pretty much alpha-quality work. It isn't that configurable, it doesn't let you roll back to a previous state (or it's not documented), the yaml parser crashes at every little change, the wiki is one page long and contains information about features that don't exist, and so on. If this project would still be worked on for one year or so, then I guess it might be serviceable.
I also tried installing Vanilla OS on a USB drive but the install isn't bootable 😅 I think the devs don't check if the drive is external and as such they don't set the necessary Grub flags for this to work. I may try it in the future but I'm surely not going to install it in on my fixed drive.
mad respect for the work they're doing on vanilla os
Awesome video, thanks! If his distro gave us the option to use Plasma it would be amazing.
Have you looked at Universal Blue (Aurora, Bluefin or Bazzite)?
thanks for bringing Vanilla OS 2 Orchid to my attention.