Opinions on answering "This is not a distro"

General
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Idea we just had in chat since people ask: “why is this a new distro”, which leads to “We’re not making a distro, this is something else.”

Technically Bazzite/Bluefin are custom images so we call them that but most people think that’s weird. I think a nice clean solution is: “This is my customized setup” - so it’s more about how we use Fedora, to us that extra hot rod stuff is why we do this. But it has to be done the cloud way because it needs to be nice and clean . So I think if we scope it to that then we just need to find a word for that.

Here’s what Fedora says (full spec):

New variants will use the Fedora Atomic name.

Then it’s easy to describe, we’re what I just call “Atomic Turbo”. Totally not authorized by the manufacturer. :smile: Community built but since that’s the fun part, what @bketelsen and I call “Mom and Dad Linux” where we’re ready for the end game machinery and we need to get these problems fixed.

What else could be more Linux than slapping a Turbo badge on it and then going to go driving, which is what we really want to do. But the actual name for the nerds is “Fedora Silverblue Atomic Bluefin Turbo powered by Universal Blue” because that’s just going to be your car’s custom livery and who cares, at that point go crazy. F1 fans, you know what I mean. :smile:

And it avoids the whole naming thing, upstream has guidance (and we can do it in whatever way is compliant), Let’s just go with that and it is what it is and then we can move on to bigger problems. Thoughts on this?

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I think it is perfectly fine to call Bazzite/Bluefin a distro. My reasoning is that many distros are actually based on other distros. The current big “fundamental” distros are Debian, Fedora and Arch Linux (and maybe also NixOS). Other distros have been built on top of them and they actively keep track of what is happening upstream. Some downstream-distros made considerable extensions (Ubuntu, RHEL) while other distributions only focus on tweaking one small area of a parent distribution (Kubuntu, CentOS before the RHEL source lockdown, Manjaro Linux, …). The key idea here is that you can still call yourself a distribution, if you mostly piggyback on another distribution.

It is fine to invent new terminology like “Atomic” to express the nature of the distribution more precisely. However, it takes time for users/outsiders to pick up that terminology and the word “distro” can be used as a conversation starter in the meantime.

Idea we just had in chat since people ask: “why is this a new distro”,

We also need to consider why people ask this. I think in many cases it is because there are already plenty of distros to choose from and people might not see the need for yet another Linux distribution. I’ve also seen people ask “what is the unique selling point?” or “what is unique about this distro?”, which are much better questions to ask, because they point towards the personal benefits of using a particular distro.

It’s fun to talk about technical details, but it is actually much more informative to talk about the philosophy behind a distribution. I think Arch Linux does a really good job at explaining what their philosophy is. The Introduction to Bluefin and the landing page are pretty good, but I think a separate document that puts the philosophy into the center of the discussion would be a useful thing to show to new people. Philosophy is important, because all technical decisions are based on philosophy.

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Should we make this section more prominent? The feature list is after that section.

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This is good stuff. But let me try to sketch out what my perspective of the Bluefin philosophy is. And yes, I realize that we are in the General - Universal Blue subforum, but my experience is very much informed by Bluefin so I have a hard time drawing a dividing line between Universal Blue and Bluefin. And yes, this is subjective, so I might get things wrong.

Bluefin philosophy

Reliability

Bluefin uses an atomic update model for the core system. In the unlikely event that an update breaks your system, you can always go back to a previous version and keep using your computer.

Consistency

Bluefin uses an image-based approach to define the core system. All users benefit from using the same image and receiving the same updates which makes it possible to have a predictable system where bugs can be easily reproduced and fixed.

Immutability and system administration

Bluefin takes the /usr merge to the next level by making the /usr partition readonly. Not even root can change data under /usr. This provides more reliable system upgrade guarantees but also makes switching between different universal blue distributions very easy, because it places /usr under the governance of the distribution providers.

Local administration happens under /etc which also enjoys rollback support, because every system update takes a snapshot of the files in /etc.

Mutable data lives under /var

Users care about data. And data is rarely static. Therefore there is a dedicated /var directory where mutable data from the system and its users is stored. Each user has their home directory under /var/home/username where they are free to do whatever they like.

System-level customization

If there is some low-level technical design choice that a system administrator doesn’t like about the system, they can switch to and follow a different universal blue distribution or they can layer their own customizations on top of the curent system. They will also benefit from the update process that always reapplies the customizations after a system update. However, this method should be used sparingly, because it goes against the philosophy of Bluefin and it can also slow down some operations.

Personal customization

Bluefin comes with the Gnome desktop which allows individual users to customize their experience. Any changes to the configuration are stored in the user’s home directory.

Running software

Bluefin empowers ordinary users to install and run software. This can be done by using either 1) flatpacks, 2) distroboxes 3) the mac software installer whose name I have forgotten

Flatpacks

Bluefin provides support for installing Flatpacks direktly from Flathub out of the box, because this is the best software store with a good selection of graphical software.
Flatpacks show a lot of promise to become the de-facto package format for Linux in the future.

Distrobox

Bluefin comes with distrobox which makes it possible for users to install and run software from other Linux distributions. This gives users access to a wide range of great Linux software that can be run in the terminal or in a graphical environment. It also helps with cloud-native development that Bluefin wants to promote.

There’s also toolbox, but distrobox is simply more flexible.

The mac os package manager whose name I forgot

Never used it. But apparently it’s good :wink:

Developer experience

On of Bluefin’s target audiences is software developers. Bluefin comes with the right tools to do cloud-native development. The system can be further supercharged by using the -dx variant of Bluefin to get VS Code and other tools as part of the base system.

Bluefin Development

The creation of Bluefin has been enabled by the emergence of new cloud-native technologies that make it possible to automate the vast majority of the work that is required to maintain a Linux distribution. Thanks to automated building and testing, new updated images can be created without much human effort.

Bluefin is based on Fedora Silverblue and it benefits greatly from the development effort that flows into that distribution and the wider Fedora and Linux ecosystem.

The Ubuntu spirit on top of Fedora Silverblue

Bluefin aims to provide a nice desktop for end users that is easy to use? …

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Ooh mind if I steal some of this? We’re pretty careful about avoiding the terms “immutable” and “distribution” and probably not going to go into the /usr merge stuff, etc. Our shtick is kind of “you don’t have to worry about any of this anymore because it’s not important to you, it’s just handled.”

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Sure, take it. Remix it. Improve it.

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If I were to describe Bluefin/Bazzite to a somewhat general audience, I’d call them something like “opinionated Fedora variants with more batteries included”, and I’d explicitly sidestep any semantic questions about what counts as a distro. Sure, the main outputs of the projects are custom OCI & ISO images…but what makes Bazzite/Bluefin’s customizations interesting and distinctive, compared to any random distro or distro flavor or custom OS image, is the hardware support and the design of golden paths for how the OS should be used. And I think what’s distinctive about how Bazzite/Bluefin do customization (i.e. using Fedora’s OCI container features) is that it’s simpler for project contributors to experiment with, maintain, and share those customizations, but that’s only of interest to contributors; the main relevance to end-users is that these projects can give us better and more reliable customizations because of how they work behind-the-scenes, and that even with such extensive customizations we can still worry less about the risk of disruptions from OS updates.

For a simpler way to introduce Bluefin’s philosophy and values, I wonder if it might help to summarize them with memorable phrases. Just brainstorming, I’m thinking of things like “out-of-the-box productivity”, “painless updates”, “simpler administration”, and “modern Linux for old & new hardware” for people who normally would be installing Ubuntu for friends/family/coworkers; and, for people who like the word “Turbo”, phrases like (with apologies to Rust) “fearless customization” or “innovation without instability”.

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Because uBlue and Bluefin exist explicitly to promote a new model of Linux development and maintenance, I think it’s important to land on distro-agnostic language similar to immutable, cloud native, or atomic. To that end I think the answer to the question of “is this a new distro” should be “it’s not a new distro, it’s just a custom image of Fedora.”

In this case Fedora is the actual distro and the work uBlue is doing on top of that is a customization. That layer of customization exists in the term ‘custom image.’ It’s a term that’s not specific to our project and can be used by any other project that is doing something similar with a cloud native approach. Fedora provides a stock image and we provide a custom image.

I also think that the concept of an image is already out in the world, so we’re extending that concept rather than coming up with a new name.

My concern with settling on something like Turbo added to the end of a name is that it seems too specific to our project and doesn’t seem like something another cloud native desktop project could use.

My concern with acquiescing and calling uBlue a distro is that it implies more differences between Fedora and uBlue than there are in the features of the images, how the projects are built, and how the infrastructure is run.

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Hah yeah, the problem is that audience knows what “A custom OCI image” is. Or maybe we just keep at it with the “custom image” and then bring everyone else along with the story and err on the side of education?

BTW, Thanks for your help in marketing lately, the Mastodon account is on point!

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In my opinion I think that’s the way. We won’t be escaping the need to educate people any time soon just as Fedora Atomic and similar distros also need to continue educating people.

Thanks! Really it’s because you guys are doing so much in the project that I have so much to post about, so thank you too!

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IMHO, we should call Bazzite a “Cloud Administered Linux Version” or CALV in short :wink:
So we could say Bazzite is a CALV based on Fedora :stuck_out_tongue:

It is, or will be soon™, a more stable Linux version as most Linux versions because it’s base configuration is done in the cloud, by people with more knowledge as the average user.
It still leaves enough space for the end-user to do it’s own customization’s, but that need is much much less compared to other Linux versions.
Maybe you could compare it to Android which has a similar update system…

(If you noticed i explicitly avoided the term distro for a good reason)

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Personally, the way I’ve been calling uBlue and its custom images has been as ‘distro’ with the quote marks, when I want to put it in a simple way. But generally I also just say “Well, more like a custom setup of Fedora immutable that’s a lot more usable OOTB”.

I know it’s not really a distro, but the easiest way to put it is to just say it is a distro, but also tempering it with the fact that it’s really just a custom setup of Fedora.

I personally REALLY don’t like the ‘with batteries’ term, though. I have no idea what that meant at first - I legitimately thought it meant “with battery optimization” and that it has custom TLP/PPD profiles or something. IMHO “Fedora immutable with better GUI tools and more usable OOTB” to be a better descriptor of the uBlue images.

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This is Python’s motto, it means that we strive to include everything so it’s ready to go out of the box.

custom TLP/PPD profiles or something.

Actually we ship tuned in Bazzite and Bluefin so this is also true!

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I think a new word is needed. Perhaps one that is less used. And I think calling it a distro would just be easier, because if saying ‘distro’ is verboten, it takes a paragraph to describe what it is, and in the end, it sounds like a distro anyway (as much as Garuda sounds like a distro, and is Arch with bells and whistles).

So what about:

Modular

I think that really gets at the underlying ability to replace (rebase) the operating system image with something else. E.g. Silverblue to Bluefin
SUSE is already using the term ‘modular operating system’, but I don’t think their definition is widely known, and don’t think there would be an expectation that uBlue is anything similar to their definition.
Modular also speaks to the use of distrobox to run other distros, well, in a box. They are, in effect, modules.
Similarly, flatpaks could be thought of as modules as well, since they are easily added or removed with minimal, if any, impact on the rest of the system.

Something like:

Bluefin is a modular Linux distribution that isolates the operating system from the user space. This increases security and reliability of the underlying operating system, and provides the ability to change operating system images at will. Additionally, other operating system modules may be used to run specialized application via distrobox. Flatpaks provide a modular means of installing and removing applications with mimimal impact on the operating system.

And most people understand the concept of ‘module’ or ‘modular’ (as in furniture, etc.).

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A lot depends on intended audience too.
“Cloud native” probably sounds familiar and inviting to devs that work on kubernetes, whereas to the general public, it kind of sounds like using Windows through a browser on a Microsoft website.

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That’s a great point. “Batteries included” is slang/jargon which will be unclear to many people, especially if we’re writing for a more global audience; other examples of slang/jargon I’ve used include “piece of cake”, “out of the box”, and “golden paths”. For clearer/simpler English for a broader audience, I would change what I had said above to something like “custom versions of Fedora with changes to make it easier to use” - though this is also even less specific than what I had said above.

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I agree with this while still being in the camp of wanting to increase education on what it means. Cloud native is an established term in the cloud infrastructure world, but when we use it in the context of desktop Linux I always hear how it chafes against people who don’t know what it means. To them it sounds like we’re offering the worst parts of a chromebook with a term that is meaningless to them.

However, an unofficial goal of this project is for it work as a starting point for nerds to learn what cloud native is by using skills from that space to tinker with their OS. It ties into a long term sustainability goal for them. In the short term I’d like for us to keep promoting this term alonside atomic and potentially others because it’s an important and accurate part of what uBlue is trying to do.

Which, by the way, Fedora is also settling on the term atomic instead of immutable, so we can lean on that as well.

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I would just use “a family of more practical and ready-to-use versions of Fedora”.

If we’re talking in a Linux group, I would make that “Fedora immutable” because then it’d be relevant especially as it solves an issue of interest for the group - that Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite doesn’t feel “ready-to-use and practical” for most people without a lot of work. Maybe use “modifiable” instead of “practical” because that’s a key concern with ‘immutable distro’.

Oh, and maybe add a “made by the community” at the end, to denote that it isn’t an official project by Fedora.

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I don’t think “Modular” is a correct term in this case, because Linux in itself is already modular in that sense that each piece of it is a different package maintained by different people…

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Where do I go if I would like to speak directly to one of the bazzite core team of maintainers?.

There are a number of concerns I have and I’d like some feedback that is less prone to public relations based communications and is instead more “Up Front” about the Philosophy discussed previously within this post.

Edit: Would also appreciate any feedback related to the isogenerator and questions I have about accessing relevant resources, tutorials, how-to’s, guides, or instructional documentation.