Hello, my dear friends, I am a new user and enthusiast of immutable distros just like you. My personal goal is to promote distros for humans, real users who are not interested in technology and will never visit a support forum, such as family, friends or colleagues. I think that the biggest goal that immutable distros are achieving is to reach this group of people like never before, who for multiple reasons will not use a Linux distro because of the way they are made. And I wanted to give a couple of suggestions (subjective, by the way), to improve the experience for the new user. They are not demands, just suggestions:
1.- Automatic updates: although it is very simple to update (just one click), from general experience, users do not update anything as a rule.
2.- Automatic encryption without password: for privacy and security reasons, automatic disk encryption could be implemented and backup codes could be saved by means of a QR code.
3.- Gnome extension: Due to usage issues, I think that the application bar should always be visible by default, so that people gradually get used to the new Gnome paradigm.
4.- Automatic restoration and repair: At this point, I confess that I have not read your backup system, because I have the preconceived idea that when an update fails, the system automatically returns to a previous state that works. This is an essential tool for a new person who updates the system and it breaks down and automatically restores itself to continue working.
Automatic updates: although it is very simple to update (just one click), from general experience, users do not update anything as a rule.
This is already a thing in Aurora, Bluefin, and Bazzite’s Desktop images. Automatic updates for both system and applications installed.
Automatic encryption without password: for privacy and security reasons, automatic disk encryption could be implemented and backup codes could be saved by means of a QR code.
This would have to be added upstream by Fedora.
Gnome extension: Due to usage issues, I think that the application bar should always be visible by default, so that people gradually get used to the new Gnome paradigm.
I agree with this suggestion and there’s a few established extensions that do this already that can be installed in Extension Manager. However, I’m not sure what everyone else who maintains Bluefin and Bazzite GNOME think about this being a default.
Automatic restoration and repair
This would be difficult to implement and detect properly, and also an upstream thing with the libostree developers for system updates. For now, a manual rollback works if the current deployment is unbootable and is relatively easy. It may require reading documentation however.
I have been using Ubuntu almost 20 years and if I remember correctly in Ubuntu application launcher is put on the left and it is named Dash.
In Fedora it looks like it is by default put on bottom and is called Dock.
In Blufin there is already preinstalled Dash to Dock extension - it can be set in Extension Manager (or top left click on “u” icon and select Extensions).
Little bit of testing:
turn off all extensions and bottom dock gets hidden if application gets maximized
turn on Dash to Dock and by default it is displayed left and dash do not autohide when application is maximized
turn on Dash to Dock, set to bottom and do not autohide and you get what you want → maybe this should be default
But… I like exactly the opposite I like dock/dash to be hidden if application is maximized, so in Dash to Dock extension also turn on “Intelligent autohide”. This setting hides dash if application is maximized or if application is not maximized and application is moved to the left.
Alongside this above extension I also always install Hide Top Bar extension that also hides top bar. Now when I maximize application the only thing that is visible on desktop is my application in super full screen. If I need dock or top bar I press Super key and both are displayed. In later extension I also turn on both of the Intellihide options.
But… if someone is not used to this it can get crazy to figure it out how to get dock and top bar back.
