Universal Blue is a Linux Distro that can be dramatically changed without reinstalling

[Betonhaus]

Universal Blue is a new paradigm for the Linux desktop and it's brilliant

There's a new type of Linux distribution that does something no other operating system can do, and it blew my mind over the weekend.

www.zdnet.com

According to the Git documentation: "With the rebase command, you can take all the changes that were committed on one branch and replay them on a different branch. For this example, you would check out the experiment branch, and then rebase it onto the master branch…"

Well now this is interesting. This would allow you to switch from a development branch to a more stable branch without having to nuke and reinstall, and allows you to make dramatic changes like swapping your desktop environment without having the old environment kicking around. I can see this being a major change that is eventually integrated into Fedora or Ubuntu

 

[Susanna]

Maybe I'm just stupid, but doesn't NixOS basically already do this? My configuration.nix is symlinked to "desktop.nix" which includes "nas client.nix", "software.nix", "kde.nix" and so on. My laptop is the same except laptop.nix and some different includes, my NAS is the same except server.nix and a few other includes, etc. If I wanted to switch DE on all of them, I'd just make gnome.nix, and change "include kde.nix" to "include gnome.nix". Setting up a new machine is as easy as mounting my NAS, symlinking configuration.nix on the new machine to newmachine.nix on the NAS, and nixos-rebuild/install.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Just what I wanted, an operating system that can get into a "detached head" state. Pardon me while I detach my own head.

 

[nah]

This is coming from someone who has used Arch in the past: constantly updating software is a waste of time and resources. What kind of ADHD-riddled person wants to janny their own system like this?

 

[Betonhaus]

This is coming from someone who has used Arch in the past: constantly updating software is a waste of time and resources. What kind of ADHD-riddled person wants to janny their own system like this?

Restore points and optional feature packages seem like a good use for this.

 

[nah]

Restore points and optional feature packages seem like a good use for this.

Snapshots are handled by LVM. By optional feature packages, do you mean package groups like gnome or python? If so, then your package manager can handle this and can use a package list text file as input.

Maybe there's some use case for this, but my knee-jerk reaction is that it was done by a bunch of assholes who are too stuck up to look at what everyone else has been using for decades and won't RTFM because it doesn't have image macros between every two lines of text.

 

[Betonhaus]

Snapshots are handled by LVM. By optional feature packages, do you mean package groups like gnome or python? If so, then your package manager can handle this and can use a package list text file as input.

Maybe there's some use case for this, but my knee-jerk reaction is that it was done by a bunch of assholes who are too stuck up to look at what everyone else has been using for decades and won't RTFM because it doesn't have image macros between every two lines of text.

Maybe. I don't know Linux distros that well but I thought it was neat. I'd probably just use Zorin OS if i had to use Linux tho

 

[Piss Clam]

Linux will always be the poor boy on the street. If nvidia and amd and programmers got their shit together and we didn't have to use a rethunk like WINE or steamOS for gaming then you'd see alot more people adobt it.

As of now it is still like UN*X....very few people run it, because it doesn't have the applications to run.

 

[Absolutego]

Ok am I horribly misreading this or is this basically a button-push version of just running apt install gnome-desktop?
He even had to reboot to reload the GUI, this isn't some super-secret advanced linux feature.

 

[Betonhaus]

Linux will always be the poor boy on the street. If nvidia and amd and programmers got their shit together and we didn't have to use a rethunk like WINE or steamOS for gaming then you'd see alot more people adobt it.

As of now it is still like UN*X....very few people run it, because it doesn't have the applications to run.

Not to mention all the different distros get confusing. Should i be running ubuntu or Fedora or Elementary OS or Linux Mint or Zorin OS.

 

[Absolutego]

Not to mention all the different distros get confusing. Should i be running ubuntu or Fedora or Elementary OS or Linux Mint or Zorin OS.

For like 99% of users just running the (likely) Debian-based distro whose UI you like the most is the sum total of needed decision-making, they're more similar under the hood than distro evangelists would like people to know.
Just don't run RHEL or CentOS as a personal desktop environment, that's an autism tell.

 

[Betonhaus]

For like 99% of users just running the (likely) Debian-based distro whose UI you like the most is the sum total of needed decision-making, they're more similar under the hood than distro evangelists would like people to know.
Just don't run RHEL or CentOS as a personal desktop environment, that's an autism tell.

I believe Linux Mint requires a full reinstall whenever you want to upgrade, tho that might be one of a couple other dozen distros

 

[Absolutego]

I believe Linux Mint requires a full reinstall whenever you want to upgrade, tho that might be one of a couple other dozen distros

? You can just upgrade through apt/mintupgrade. Mint never gets a say-so in the process. They may warn you nonstop about it, but ignoring warnings and wheeling ahead is like half of the fun when it comes to Linux.

 

[Kosher Dill]

They may warn you nonstop about it, but ignoring warnings and wheeling ahead is like half of the fun when it comes to Linux.

Yes, do as I say!

 

[seri0us]

Linux will always be the poor boy on the street. If nvidia and amd and programmers got their shit together and we didn't have to use a rethunk like WINE or steamOS for gaming then you'd see alot more people adobt it.

As of now it is still like UN*X....very few people run it, because it doesn't have the applications to run.

What do you think is on servers? Linux is a corporate man that's so busy working you hardly see him.

 

[Piss Clam]

What do you think is on servers? Linux is a corporate man that's so busy working you hardly see him.

I said people which meant your everday user. Not corporate. I know what runs out there.

Hell they still have old vax/vms running. I used to work for a company that ported DECnet to every UN*X box out there (phase 4), because the tcp/ip stack was shit on vax/vms.

It was my first job in the IT world and I got quite the experience from the fantastic engineers working there.

Company was called Ki Research, then Ki Networks. Very niche company.