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Bluefin Dakota Alpha 1 | Bluefin (docs.projectbluefin.io)
submitted 5 days ago by nobody_1677@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[-] nobody_1677@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

Not sure how I feel about this "distroless" pattern. It's interesting to be able to get components directly from upstreams from like Gnome, but it makes certain tasks more difficult.

The lack of any distro packages to fall back on when flatpak, distrobox, appimages, and brew fails is simply annoying. I've experienced this multiple times.

  • When I would flash OSes on my Pixel, I couldn't use flatpak/distrobox/brew. I would either have to (1) overlay a browser and ADB tools, (2) overlay ADB and maybe use an Appimage browser, or (3) boot into a traditional distro like Debian that has an unrestricted browser. Distroless has no recourse for me here.
  • Using sshfs: installing sshfs from brew or distrobox would not work without host configuration changes made by overlaying sshfs. Distroless has no distro package to fall back on
  • Using tailscale: tailscale from brew didn't work. Had to fall back on distro package. Distroless would fail me here, but in this case, I believe Jorge preinstalls it. So simply adopt all of Jorge's tastes and applications and you'll be fine...
  • No upstream Steam support since there's no rpmfusion or official valve package to use, you'd have to use something like the unoffical Steam flatpak

While I love Fedora Atomic and atomic distros in general, I constantly feel like they do not think things through. They made the system harder to break, but with severely limited (if you use them the way you're encouraged to, like no layering). They then address these gaps one by one with more and more solutions that are imperfect and that do not fit all needs.

  • Flatpak is good for GUI apps, but not CLI.
  • Brew is good for CLI stuff, but does funky PATH things that could break host OS at times (and as mentioned, did not work for sshfs or tailscale for me). KDE Linux initially promoted Brew, but then later recommended not using it at all due to its PATH shenanigans
  • Distrobox is good if you need distro packages, but the containerization has limitations with desktop integration and more complex tasks, like I mentioned with flashing OSes on my Pixel.

At least with Fedora Atomic (and containerfiles with bootc stuff), I can get a robust system, seamless OS upgrades, and install any packages that do not work well as flatpaks/distrobox/appimages.

[-] TaintTaul@programming.dev 5 points 4 days ago

no layering

I foresee a future in which (so-called) sysexts will be used heavily to address the resulting gaping hole. Unfortunately, it's not perfect either...

Though, I have to say that I find it quite hilarious to see how many alternative package managers are required to replace traditional package managers.

[-] nobody_1677@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

That's my gripe with Atomic distros. I feel like they don't take the time to think things through and throw together. Instead, they throw together a new thing to address the shortcomings of the previous five things.

Love them or hate them, it feels like the only player sticking to their guns is Canonical with snap. It's the only package manager that really does it all: GUI, CLI, IDEs, server, daemons, even the kernel and GRUB. Honestly, when the permission prompting is stable, I might be tempted to give it another chance.

[-] TaintTaul@programming.dev 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I wonder if they'll one day just alias a bunch of stuff, kinda like what Ubuntu has done with forcing Snap down people's throats. So, like:

  • sudo dnf install bottles actually doing flatpak install bottles
  • OR, e.g., sudo dnf install tldr actually doing brew install tldr
  • etc...

I don't think it's necessarily bad as long as it's very transparent on what it actually does (and why). And..., offers choice where applicable*.

Or..., like, introduce a new package manager that basically functions as a front-end. Would that ((and/)or the earlier alias-thing) be worse than sticking to the development of a single package manager until it does all (à la Snap)?

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this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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