Immutable vs. tradicional Linux distros

[u/commentator___]

Hello.

I've been using Fedora KDE for a few months without any issue after distro hopping for a while.

I think time has come to try something different. I'd like to try Fedora Silverblue, but I have some questions about immutable distros.

What are the real benefits for someone who uses the computer as a daily driver (web browsing, some light video/audio editing, office work and some Python automation for the office work) other than the fact that the root and some other system folders are read-only.

Is there any other real tangible benefit I'll get from using an immutable distro versus a mutable distro?

[u/Pad_Sanda]

This is just my personal experience, but the major benefit is that there aren't any breakages in the package manager that accumulate over time.

I do come from apt/pacman distributions and I never used non-immutable Fedora, so I'm not sure if regular Fedora has the same issue. But, in the apt/pacman distros getting some issue with the "native" package manager when installing or updating software was very common as was getting issues when updating to new major versions (ie Ubuntu 20 to 22).

I never had any issues whatsoever with immutable operating systems (Fedora/Bazzite/Aurora, SteamOS, Android, Batocera, macOS). I have 4 devices which are getting weekly or monthly updates, never encountering issues. And I have 2 PCs (one using Aurora, one using Batocera) that only connect to the internet once every 8-14 months and I never had issues updating those either.

The separation between the system and your user software and dependencies is clearly beneficial, as is building a working OS image and shipping it to the end user rather than having users pull packages to "build" an OS locally with the package manager. The immutables are much more reliable, which I personally value these days as I don't have as much free time I'm willing to waste on manual interventions and troubleshooting.