Good question! However I think it's wise to concentrate on a particular word/phrase before actually answering your query.

In an immutable setup on Fedora (trying to main Bazzite) is the correct way to use zsh and oh my zsh as my main shell

Currently, it's not always clear if there even is a correct way of installing some of these (more) edge cases. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd see 'seasoned' Fedora Atomic users that have all tackled these in very different ways while being satisfied with (not only) their own solutions (but also approve the respective solutions of their peers).

As for your query, I would say that starting to use Fedora Atomic and pointing out correctly some of the more common ways to install software while being aware of the ambiguity that exists with the chosen installation method for this specific piece of software is already very commendable. So I would like to congratulate you on that!

But, you shouldn't be afraid to stick to what's easy (aka don't allow good to be the enemy of perfect). If the extra time required for changing your base system doesn't bother you at all (which happens automatically in the background anyway), then layering it (thus installing with rpm-ostree) is probably the easiest method while protecting you from a lot of possible edge cases you might have to deal with otherwise. Traditionally, zsh (and other shells) were layered (thus installed with rpm-ostree) and uBlue itself included (perhaps still does) just commands to change root shell to zsh, fish etc. This might have changed in the last few weeks, but I think it should still be a safe bet. FWIW, I have never had any troubles pertaining to my zsh installation and any of its plugins (might as well link the managed zsh-config I rely on).

OpenBSD and its derivatives (like OmniOS)

First time hearing of OmniOS, thank you for mentioning it! EDIT: I just took a look at it and it doesn't seem to be based on OpenBSD, at least the one I could find seems to be a derivative of Solaris instead. Though, I might simply not have found what you referred to*.

because it of its security-oriented features, especially things like ZFS

Does OpenBSD's implementation of ZFS offer security features as well?

I would like to switch my daily driver, a Linux laptop, to OpenBSD so I can get used to using it as an administrator, but I worry about OpenBSD being able to support the laptop hardware, especially things like WiFi, BlueTooth, and managing the battery, screen dimming, laptop lid, and so on.

Do you think that using OpenBSD inside of a qube (from QubesOS) is perhaps something worth considering? Or don't you think there's any merit of doing this over the use of any virtualization software found on any other system?

I have another Linux computer with a Radeon graphics card which connects to my TV that my children use for video games, and watching streaming video, and I would like to switch this to OpenBSD as well but I worry that it will not be able to run Steam games very well.

From what I've read, running games on OpenBSD is a lot less mature compared to running games on Linux. Though, perhaps it's worth noting that cloud gaming solutions (like Google Stadia in the past) are known to work great on OpenBSD. Not sure if you would want that, though.

(On a more general note) I definitely agree that OpenBSD works wonderfully on the server side of things. But I've gotten skeptical over time to its feasibility as a desktop OS. Note that I'm well aware that OpenBSD's developers use it as their daily drivers, so I definitely recognize the possibility. However, when it's lacking features like Secure Boot (or any form of Trusted and/or Measured Boot for that matter), I just find it hard to justify putting it on something like a laptop that I carry around all the time. I hope that you can prove to me that my logic/understanding is flawed and that I should reconsider the use of OpenBSD as a desktop OS.

I think I got you now. I won't change my ways; /s is just way too convenient for me to give up on 😅. I guess I'm weak... Regardless, I think you've at least given me some food for thought. So thank you for that!

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences! I'm afraid it might not be very relevant as it's a device that's at least 6 years old by now 😅 (at least according to this source. Regardless, user experiences are valuable. And I'm glad to hear that the device has been working flawlessly for you so far 😊.

Love the down vote, also. Makes me feel like this is reddit all over again. Lmao. Down vote for sharing an opinion of what’s been the best Linux on laptop experience I’ve ever had.

Haters gonna hate, I guess. Don't worry too much about it. The thread you're in (so the one starting with my first reply under this post) also is the most controversial under this post. So I wouldn't be surprised if some folks just down voted indiscriminately for... some reason...

They said they don’t game.

GPUs aren't exclusive to gaming (as you should know).

Why GPU?

OP mentioned the intent to do video editing on the device. Unfortunately, the amount of good video editors on Linux is currently limited to just Davinci Resolve(; sure, the likes of Kdenlive (etc) exists, but none of them are very suitable for professional usage^[1]^). While I'm thankful that Davinci Resolve works on Linux, it's -according to their own documentation- simply not possible to make use of it without a dedicated GPU (at least on Linux). Thus, warranting the need for a dedicated GPU.

That’s horrible for battery.

I'm aware that that's a concern. Thankfully, there are workarounds. And if all else fails, there's always the possibility to make use of eGPUs; which I've actually explicitly mentioned in my earlier reply for this exact reason (without mentioning explicitly for which reason it was mentioned*).

1. OP might not even need it for professional use, but I assumed they did*.

Yup, I think you've hit the nail on its head. I've decided on using both and explore their possibilities and find how they can be best utilized for my workflow. Thank you for the excellent engagement!

I probably would have never got into Emacs at all if I had to start with vanilla.

Very interesting. I assume this is due to the amount of effort that would have been required for it to acquire some of the functionality you were expecting out of it. Am I right?

IMO Lisp is what makes Emacs great, and vimscript is (was?) an absolute nightmare for anything complex. I don’t think lua is a bad language, but I’ll still take Lisp any day for this purpose.

This is actually a great point that I somehow completely ignored so far. I intend to put my teeth in GNU Guix at some point in the future. As Guile Scheme and Lisp are -to my knowledge- at least in some way related, using Emacs should at least provide an excellent platform for me to get accustomed to what it is yet to come. Thanks for mentioning that!

What I described isn’t using containers. Nix just provides an environment for processes to run in, and direnv-mode ensures it’s using the right environment for a given buffer in Emacs. So for example I don’t have OmniSharp or dotnet in my user $PATH, but they are provided by the nix expression in a particular project directory. That allows lsp-mode to start OmniSharp as a language server, or I can run dotnet build using the Emacs compile command.

That sounds very compelling! Thanks for that insight! Perhaps I should stop procrastinating and get on with learning Nix 😅.

You can define containers with nix and manage them with nixos-container. I do that for testing server deployments, or running sandboxed services, but I’ve never needed something that complex for a dev shell.

Yet another reason in support of learning Nix.

I'm so grateful for the time it took you to write this down. Thank you so much for your contributions in this conversation! I've greatly enjoyed reading every one of your replies. While I am currently not in the state to make any promises related to sticking to Neovim in the long run. I do think that I'm at least very interested to explore its possibilities. Have a good one! Cheers!

What if I'm on Linux? And if my Monospace Text font is already set to MesloLGS NF Regular (in GNOME Tweaks) for what it provides for my zsh config*.

Wow! Excellent and thorough response. Thank you so much for taking your time 😊!

It is very nice being able to see what your action is going to effect before you do it - unlike in vim when you just hope you have hit the right movement keys.

That's awesome! Which does beg the question why the others haven't implemented such functionality (yet)?

And it also pops up a small window for leader keys (like space) which show you what you can do with it making it far more discoverable then vim/neovim without needing to pour though hundreds of pages of manuals to even get a glimpse of what it can do or needing to go back to them to remember something that you dont use very often.

Interesting. If I'm not mistaken, both Spacemacs and Doom Emacs offer similar functionality through the emacs-which-key package. I would think that Neovim should have some plugin that does something similar, but perhaps not.

Just about everyone that I have seen use it over vim have highly praised it and it has quite a few contributors already (700+ on github), which is very impressive compared to vim (about 300), and neovim (more then 1100).

I didn't expect for them to be so many 😜. Hmm..., food for thought; thanks for pointing that out!

And keep in mind that vim has been around so long thanks to a single maintainer, Bram Moolenaar, who passed away this year. Which is not a great sign for vims future for the next 20 years.

I definitely understand that Vim's future is lot less certain compared to two years ago due to the passing of Bram Moolenaar. However, and I might be wrong on this, but I feel as if Vim has reached a critical mass of following such that it'll probably continue to exist in some healthy form regardless.

In general I think you make a excellent case for Helix. I'm actually considering if I should reconsider it (if that makes sense). Uhmm..., but two questions remain:

• I shouldn't expect remote accessing some random server will allow me to use Helix, right? Is there any other way to make this work? Or..., should I just learn both Vim and Helix' Vim + Kakoune amalgamation?
• Vim is literally ubiquitous and plugins that enable its features can be found on almost any 'platform'. It's unrealistic to expect Helix' adoption to be at that rate (yet). However, would you happen to know if at least the likes of VS Code and/or Jetbrains' IDEs support it? And if so, how good their support/implementation is?

Thank you so much! Much appreciated!

About Ansible, it’s not declarative in the same way Nix is. The way it actually works is it executes little Python programs based on your config. But if you stick to the high level modules, it has a declarative feel.

Would it be correct to compare this to how declarative post-installation scripts written in bash feel like? Or is it really declarative, but just not to the level of Nix?

Btw, I just want to thank you for the heads-up 🙂 !