USP: Unique Selling Point.

Wouldn’t that be UPS?

Thank you for the reply!

Are you referring to use those packages as default?

I don’t understand why this is relevant. But, to answer your question, a modern system should already be on systemd, Wayland and PipeWire unless one has (for some reason) ideological qualms with systemd or if the maturity of Wayland isn’t quite ready for their specific needs.

The “should” used earlier isn’t used as my personal bias or whatsoever. It’s simply the default found on the upstreams projects. GNOME and KDE (the most popular DEs) default to Wayland. PipeWire has become default for at least GNOME (even on Debian). And systemd is the default on almost all Linux systems.

Furthermore, this set of software is not a random set for which Fedora happens to be the first to adopt. In fact, these are crucial parts of how we interact with Linux; these constitute the backbone if you will.

Afaik Fedora OS is not even rolling release

Firstly, no one refers to Fedora as Fedora OS. Secondly, Fedora’s release cycle is often referred to as semi-rolling release. With that, it’s meant that some packages arrive as they come (very close to how rolling release operates). However, other packages only arrive with the next point release. Though, Fedora has its Fedora Rawhide branch that operates as its rolling release branch.

However, the fact that you mention this, means that we have misunderstood eachother. I don’t claim that new versions/updates arrive first on Fedora. I don’t even claim this for any of the earlier mentioned packages. However, what I do mean is that Fedora is the first to adopt these technologies in the first place. So, the first release/version of systemd, PipeWire, Wayland etc was released on Fedora. Then, within months or years, it was adopted by other distros as well.

so I cannot fathom how it has packages earlier than the typical bleeding-edge candidates.

See previous paragraph. And, you don’t need to fathom it; I’m just stating the facts. If you do seek a reason, it’s related to Fedora’s relation to Red Hat and how most of these technologies originate from efforts coming from either Red Hat employees or made possible through their funding. Then, when it comes to testing those things, Fedora acts as their guinea pig. That’s why Fedora is sometimes referred to as Red Hat’s testing bed distro. This doesn’t only come with its positive side, because it may also come with a negative impact to its stability. However, if one is interested in what’s next for Linux, then there’s no alternative to Fedora.

Why are you mixing Fedora Atomic with the regular Fedora Distro?

Because OP actually was in praise of Fedora after using Fedora Kinoite (i.e. Fedora Atomic KDE). And then, you critiqued it (i.e. Fedora) for having no selling points. So, it was rather ambiguous.

Furthermore, Fedora has actually mentioned (for at least two and a half years now) that they intend for Fedora Atomic to be the future of Fedora. So, in a few years of time, what we’ll refer to as Fedora will simply be Fedora Atomic of today. Take note that this doesn’t mean that traditional Fedora will cease to exist. Rather, it will be referred by a different name (perhaps Fedora Classic (but I actually don’t know)).

…how is something like this objectively valid?

Alright, I made a couple of claims:

“It’s also the most mature attempt.”;

First of all, we’d have to properly define what “Nix’ify” even means or what I used it for. So, in the simplest of terms, I meant it as “Taking design elements of NixOS and applying them to an existing product. And then publishing/releasing it as a new product.”

So, basically every distro that’s commonly referred to as ‘immutable’ and that’s originated from or has loose relations to an existing distro applies. Therefore, something like Guix System does not apply; because it’s an entirely new project with nothing that pre-existed it without its NixOS influences. On the other hand; Fedora Atomic, openSUSE MicroOS Desktop and the upcoming Ubuntu Core Desktop definitely do apply. (If the upcoming Serpent OS is “Solus v2” then we can also mention that one here). The addition/admission of distros like Arkane Linux, AstOS, blendOS, MocaccinoOS, Nitrux and Vanilla OS (to name a few) is murky, but (for the sake of argument) we’ll not exclude these.

So, a proper study of their relative maturity would require a lot more effort than either of us is willing to put into. But, I made the claim based on the following (in alphabetical order):

• Adoption; Popularity of a distro is very hard to quantify on Linux. However, based on the discourse, it’s hard to deny how much more popular Fedora Atomic seems compared to its immutable peers. However, if BoilingSteam’s reports do qualify as representative, then (I think) we’ll see a very significant growth for Fedora in the next report (as the most recent one already has informed us about). And that growth can almost completely be attributed to Bazzite switching to RPM Fusion’s Steam. Hence, Bazzite and thus Fedora Atomic’s adoption would be very significant.
• Age; By itself, this is not very telling. However, when you consider that work on Fedora Atomic started (at least) over ten years ago with Project Atomic. And that it even released a version that same year (in 2014). Which eventually culminated to the release of Fedora Atomic Workstation (i.e. Silverblue) in February 2018. It’s a joke to compare this to the others that have only erupted in the last 2/3 years; so not within the same ballpark. The only exception to this would be openSUSE that launched its Project Kubic in 2017. But MicroOS Desktop only had a release in 2021.
• Development Cycle; Other projects are in beta/RC, while Fedora Silverblue has had its general availability release (at least) over two and a half years ago. To name a couple of the more interesting ones:
  • blendOS; Had their v4 Alpha last year and have just (within a month ago) gone out of it. AFAIK they didn’t have any beta or RC releases. Which makes me suspect that their ‘release’ may just be the beta/RC for other more serious projects. Furthermore, blendOS is known for rigorous changes in between their versions. Not quite what I’d refer to as mature.
  • openSUSE Aeon; released a month ago (or so) its RC2. openSUSE Kalpa (i.e. KDE) is still in alpha.
  • Vanilla OS; still in beta.
• Funding/Man-hours; A project backed by Red Hat (i.e. Fedora Atomic) vs anything else. Adding in the fact that development also started significantly earlier, this is pretty much a given in favor of Fedora Atomic.

(And finally) Rate of ‘Nix’ification’; Atomic -> Reproducible -> Declarative. These stages are passed through by aspiring ‘immutable’ distros when Nix’ifying.

For example, from almost its inception, Fedora Atomic was atomic and had a healthy portion of reproducibility. With the relatively recent transition to OCI (for updating etc), it also became (somewhat) declarative and further improved its reproducibility.

Likewise, we see similar developments in other projects:

• blendOS; Started out as only atomic and has attained reproducibility and declarative since.
• openSUSE Aeon; Started out as atomic. Wishes to be reproducible (and more robust) through transition to image-based. Not much more info on this.
• Vanilla OS; Went from only atomic to a similar OCI model like Fedora for reproducibility and becoming declarative.

Fedora Atomic has (almost) completed/finished its “Nix’ification”. While the same can be said about other projects, this does not apply to all of them. Hence, even if Fedora is not necessarily the best at this, it definitely finds itself amongst the frontrunners.

“Derivatives like Bazzite are the product of this endeavour.”

This is simply a fact. Bazzite is only possible because of Fedora Atomic.

“From the OG distros, only openSUSE (with its Aeon) has released an attempt.”

I define OG distros as the big, independent distros that will probably never lose their relevancy. Think of Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, NixOS, openSUSE, Slackware, Solus OS, Void etc. For the sake of argument, we could include all independent distros. Out of these; Fedora, openSUSE, Solus and Ubuntu are the only ones for which we know their team/organization are actively working to erupt an ‘immutable’ distro while (originally) their distro followed a traditional model. Ubuntu Core Desktop has yet to release and the same applies to whatever Solus is cooking. From openSUSE, we have openSUSE Aeon (and Kalpa) and for Fedora we got its own 4 atomic spins. Furthermore, we got dozens of derivatives based on Fedora Atomic. So once more, this is just factual.

“However, it seems to be less ambitious in scope and vision.”

This is definitely a loaded claim. I’ll answer this in my next comment.

I understand you like Fedora

Exactly. But it’s on merits. On the other hand, it seems as if you dislike Fedora for some reason. However, it’s unclear to me as to why that is.

but you make claims without any proof or just pure opinion based.

I can back up (almost) every claim I’m making (as you should have noticed by now). Not citing sources or whatsoever is due to laziness and because I don’t think you’ll check those sources anyway (like how you seemingly didn’t check if the earlier mentioned software indeed were first adopted on Fedora and if so; why). However, if you want me to cite sources on statements I make, then please mention the exact statements I’m making and I will back those up with sources.

It’s also peculiar that you make uninformed guesses or claims without backing them up yourself. Nor do you feel compelled to look up if the unsure statement/claim is even correct or not in the first place. Though, I should at least compliment you for being honest/transparent when making unsure claims/statements!

Yet, I’m still waiting for you to name a distro with more impressive unique selling points 😜.