It's spring time, which means it's time for me to get bored with the operating system on my daily driver and start to re-investigate my options.  The oncoming onslaught of age verification laws that look like they were written by badly trained AI is also helping preempt this thought, since Linux distributions will of course be forced to react in some manner.

I'm currently running Project Bluefin, which is an opinionated variation of the Universal Blue project.  I'm a fan, and I'm not investigating change because of anything holding me back in the current front.

Ground rules:

  • I've run Fedora for almost 2 decades.  While I certainly can work in Ubuntu/derivatives, I'd prefer not to simply due to toolset familiarity.
  • I know, Arch exists.  I don't want to.  Did Gentoo before Pentium was a thing and compile time flags actually mattered.  Don't need to do that again unless some other compelling reason.
  • If I'm going to go all the way in on managing the tool, I'll go all the way to Linux from Scratch.  At least that way I've built the OS from ground up, so there's actual benefit to compiling everything from scratch - not imagined performance gains on i7's with 64GB ram.
  • If you choose "Something Else," leave a comment with the suggestion and discuss/justify why you think I should move.  I'm not against new things, but it won't replace my daily driver "just because, bro."
  • Don't do the distro war thing.  It was tiring on IRC in 2002, it's exhausting 25 years later.  Sell your opinion on it's own merits, not by flaming other things.
  • Boosts welcome.  It'll be a fun time.

    #linux #fedora #universalblue #projectbluefin #linuxfromscratch #choices #youdidntreadthisfardidyou #maybedanedid #poll

    Stick with vanilla Bluefin
    9.1%
    Roll my own bootc variant
    18.2%
    Return to Fedora Workstation
    45.5%
    Roll & manage LFS
    9.1%
    Something Else (not Arch)
    18.2%
    Poll ended at .
    Bluefin

    The next generation cloud-native Linux workstation, designed for reliability, performance, and sustainability.

    I've been on Ultramarine Linux for a while and I strongly recommend it, it's fantastic! Imagine Fedora but you don't have to worry about all of the annoying stuff you have to worry about when you install it for the first time... and with some little comforts on top of that. And that's pretty much it.

    But I think I'm going back to Bazzite. And the reason is a silly one but I think it's also quite the testament to the convenience of Universal Blue's images... I'm kind of sick about having to worry about updates. That's it.

    On Bazzite, updates just happen in the background without me touching anything and the next time I boot up my computer, poof, they're applied. It just does its thing and I don't even notice it. But here, I often have to manually update through the software center and then, not just reboot, but purposefully reboot to do install my updates.

    Why is this annoying, you may ask? Because, usually, when I shut down my computer, it's late at night and I want to go to sleep. And going to sleep for me, with my ADHD, it's a whooooole process. So, having to go through the motions of: Shut down my computer > Let it boot up again > Enter my longass password to decrypt my drive (the most annoying part) > Let it do its thing until it shuts off automatically... well, that's added friction.

    And I know how it sounds, like nothing, but it's been enough for me to put off updates plenty of times. But compare that to not thinking about it ever because everything just happens in the background and the next time I'll boot up my computers all of the updates will be layered on top of my system without me even noticing... it makes for quite the difference to me.

    When I got into the whole Universal Blue thing with Bluefin, I just couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. Why was everyone talking about "not having to worry about updates, ever?" I kept trying to update manually until one day it just clicked, maybe I noticed that things had updated themselves without me noticing, I don't remember. But since then, it has become such a little piece of comfort that... I miss it. Enough to hop back to an immutable system instead of staying on more traditional Linux distro.

    And while I know that for some people, everything happening in the background without ever having to think about it sounds like hell, well, you're probably not the target then. Because to me, it sounds like heaven. Not having to worry about my 'puter other than feeding it a balanced diet of pets on its chassis and the occasional dust cleaning, it's wonderful. It makes it self-sustaining on the software side. And I really like that.

    Good job, Universal Blue peeps! You got me.

    (please don't be / turn into far right weirdos like so many fucking open source projects)

    #universalblue #fedora #ultramarinelinux #bazzite #bluefin #projectbluefin

    sometimes i just go on project bluefin's website just to look at the pretty dinosaurs. 

    #bluefin #universalblue #projectbluefin #dinosaurs

    Bluefin

    The next generation cloud-native Linux workstation, designed for reliability, performance, and sustainability.

    @MountainWizard

    You should try #bazzite.

    Easy-peasy rollbacks if anything goes awry. Automatic updates in the background, for the next time you boot up.

    Less fussing, more computering.
    https://bazzite.gg/

    DOCs:
    https://docs.bazzite.gg/
    FAQs:
    https://faq.bazzite.gg/

    (Also available in Developer Experience flavor)
    https://dev.bazzite.gg/

    P.S. also checkout:
    #ProjectBluefin
    https://projectbluefin.io/
    #Aurora
    https://getaurora.dev/en
    (Also available in Developer Experience flavors)

    Bazzite - The operating system for the next generation of gamers

    Bazzite makes gaming and everyday use smoother and simpler across desktop PCs, handhelds, tablets, and home theater PCs.

    Switched from #ProjectBluefin to #zirconium because #kicad has less issues running on #niriwm than #Gnome

    https://github.com/zirconium-dev/zirconium

    GitHub - zirconium-dev/zirconium: Opinionated Niri bootc image

    Opinionated Niri bootc image. Contribute to zirconium-dev/zirconium development by creating an account on GitHub.

    GitHub
    Bluefin

    The next generation cloud-native Linux workstation, designed for reliability, performance, and sustainability.

    Project Bluefin! The beer represents homebrew. The "ice" represents Flatpaks, there's a small Flathub logo on the glass. A small Bazaar flag hanging represents Bazaar and finally a seal hat to represent bootc!

    #ProjectBluefin #Bluefin #universalblue #bootc #flathub #flatpak #bazaar #homebrew #art #artsky

    Switched to Bluefin DX over Fedora Silverblue and while everything was a bit more painful to customize for me because it has so much more stuff preinstalled and floating around in it, I will say once that was done it's been more enjoyable to use on the whole. I like using brew for CLI packages and flatpak for apps and that's all setup for me out of the box. Bazaar for flatpaks is interesting. It still feels pretty young but is worlds faster than gnome software. It doesn't feel as newbie friendly but that's fine for me and I specifically chose the developer focused version so I'm sure that has something to do with it.
    #UniversalBlue #ublue #ProjectBluefin #FedoraSilverblue #Fedora

    P.S. Dinosaurs are rad!

    Lenovo ThinkCentre build! I love Bluefin on it

    #Thinkcentre #projectbluefin #bluefin
    Looks like there is another dinosaur in the wild! Project Bluefin is now running in a virtual machine on my main Windows laptop. #ProjectBluefin #Fedora #Linux
    Bluesky

    Bluesky Social