Hi, I installed Bluefin this weekend and so far I’m quite excited about it 
I’m now trying to set my /etc/hosts file to block many undesired sites using a zero hosts file (https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/zero/hosts).
What’s the proper way to do it so it survives across updates?
Thanks
So I am no expert, so please double check and research to verify, and please correct me if I am wrong.
But I believe that /etc/ is considered “writeable”, along with /var and /home (aka /var/home).
When you first install ublue (or bazzite, etc) it copies over a “default” /etc/ from /usr/etc (the immutable part), and then customizes /etc with your system specific needs. Then it is setup to always prefer /etc over /usr/etc. So besides the initial install, the system doesnt modify your /etc again.
So as long as you are not reinstalling (and wiping /), you can write it to /etc and it will never get blown away from updates.
Extra context. I believe I saw some discussions about wanting to move /etc to /var/etc just like home, to clear up any confusion, but it would have been a huge hassle and cause a lot of unnecessary risk. There is also talk of having a “power wash” feature that would wipe away /etc and copy over a fresh version, due to it persisting through reinstalls and potentially causing hard to identify issues if something is improperly configured.
EDIT:
Some links for context to back up what I summerized (found them in my booksmarks). I have more, but can only post 2 links as a new user
TLDR: you can modify /etc directly and it should persist through updates
Thanks a lot. I’ll work on it and get back if I run into issues.