[HN Gopher] OpenSUSE Kalpa
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       OpenSUSE Kalpa
        
       Author : ogogmad
       Score  : 145 points
       Date   : 2026-03-17 13:54 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (kalpadesktop.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (kalpadesktop.org)
        
       | dizhn wrote:
       | Interesting they are hosting on codeberg. Opensuse has a pretty
       | established hosting/build architecture provided by Suse.
        
         | Zambyte wrote:
         | I was going to guess that it may be easier to get new
         | contributors on a general site like Codeberg, but it seems like
         | they're just using Codeberg pages to host the actual website,
         | not using it for the bug tracker or anything like that.
         | Interesting choice indeed.
        
         | iberator wrote:
         | Codeberg is AMAZING. fast and super simpler. KISS
         | 
         | Just works
        
       | quantummagic wrote:
       | This web page doesn't do a good job of motivating the reader.
       | 
       | I understand what the Plasma Desktop Environment is. But what is
       | "atomic and transactional Linux"? What are the advantages to the
       | alternatives? What other projects are similar? What is the
       | motivation for this project in particular? Most importantly, why
       | should I want to use it?
        
         | mhitza wrote:
         | Yes, all projects in this sphere should communicate better.
         | 
         | An atomic distro is one in which the updates are swapped
         | atomically at reboots. They also go by the name of immutable
         | distros. Only the "system" partition is immutable.
         | 
         | Most popular I would say is SteamOS followed by the Fedora
         | variants (Silverblue, Kinoite) and derivatives (Bazzite).
         | 
         | They are still limiting in daily use, rough around some edges.
        
           | theragra wrote:
           | Yeah. I use bazzite, but had to overlay like 5 apps. Flatpaks
           | are often disappointing or just do not exist. AppImage is
           | awesome, too bad it is used rarely.
        
         | stryan wrote:
         | > what is "atomic and transactional Linux"?
         | 
         | Linux distros that are updated with full system snapshots
         | instead of package by package, similar to Android. The key
         | difference is most of / is mounted read-only[0] and is only
         | changed by distribution provided updates so you and the distro
         | team always know exactly what's running.
         | 
         | > What are the advantages to the alternatives?
         | 
         | Greater control and stability since its essentially always
         | running in a supported configuration. Easy roll-backs to a
         | previous update if something goes wrong. You always know
         | exactly what your system is running if you want to keep it in
         | sync across machines (more useful in a server setting).
         | 
         | > What other projects are similar
         | 
         | Kalpa is a "sibling" project to AeonOS, which is atomic
         | OpenSUSE but with Gnome (and other changes, which I'll get to).
         | There's also the Fedora Atomic line of Fedora Kinoite and
         | Silverblue (KDE and Gnome respectively), U-Blue, Bazzite,
         | SteamOS, and more. I think most major distro lines have an
         | Atomic variant at this point.
         | 
         | > What is the motivation for this project in particular?
         | 
         | For Kalpa specifically, it's to offer a KDE alternative to
         | AeonOS. Originally there was just AeonOS, which was OpenSUSE
         | MicroOS (an atomic version of OpenSUSE Tumbleweed) with GNOME
         | installed. Aeon has diverged greatly from MicroOS though and I
         | think it no longer uses it as an upstream. AeonOS also refused
         | to support KDE[1], so Kalpa was created. Kalpa still uses
         | MicroOS as its upstream and I'm not sure if there's any plans
         | to change that.
         | 
         | > Most importantly, why should I want to use it?
         | 
         | I use it on my personal laptop because it lets me have all the
         | benefits of a rolling distro (up to date packages) without the
         | stability concerns. Updates apply automatically in the
         | background and I know when I reboot I'll always have a working
         | system available to me.
         | 
         | [0] /etc is mounted as an overlay FS so you can still make
         | changes to it. /var, /usr/local, and /srv are also still user-
         | writable. I think /mnt is too but I forget off hand.
         | 
         | [1] Aeon is generally anti-customization and does its best to
         | only offer one way of doing things. This is to prevent
         | configuration drift and reduce the maintenance burden per
         | snapshot. GNOME also has a more regular release cadence, which
         | makes it much easier to integrate than KDE (or so I've been
         | told..)
        
           | MrBuddyCasino wrote:
           | Is there a relationship with concepts such as NixOS?
        
             | jamesgeck0 wrote:
             | It's closer to the "sealed system volume" model that macOS
             | uses. The core OS filesystem isn't (normally) writable,
             | although you can finagle it to add drivers and such.
        
           | lejalv wrote:
           | Would the A/B filesystem approach a la Android be a good way
           | to distribute Linux with ZFS-on-root without all the angst
           | from DKMS modules versioning?
           | 
           | [Maybe unrelated, but just occurred to me (some horror
           | stories have prevented me from trying ZFS-on-boot in linux
           | after Ubuntu botched it with their Zsys "adventure").]
        
             | ninth_ant wrote:
             | If i understand the intention of a zfs root combined with
             | an a/b approach -- it feels like this btrfs root and
             | immutable gives you the same benefits but with better
             | mainline support.
        
         | pmontra wrote:
         | It's buried in the About page, but it uses different
         | terminology. They definitely have to review their copy.
         | 
         | > Automatic Updates: Updates never touch your running system,
         | only taking effect on reboot.
         | 
         | > Resilient: Due to the atomic nature of updates, if something
         | goes wrong, the system will automatically roll back to the last
         | known good working state
        
           | mardifoufs wrote:
           | Wait I thought being able to update without rebooting was a
           | good thing? It was a relatively common argument against
           | windows
        
             | tosti wrote:
             | Wait until Linux can run itself from the top while keeping
             | your work intact.
             | 
             | See https://lwn.net/Articles/1033364/
        
             | tmottabr wrote:
             | That depend on your needs.. linux can do live update if you
             | need that, usefull on servers..
             | 
             | But atomic versions as more target to desktops or
             | containers where you need to have know working setup and
             | when you upgrade you replace it by newer one..
             | 
             | So you dont update per se... You install the new version in
             | a separated partition and boot into it the next time you
             | restart.. Same with containers, you just destroy it and
             | recreate with the new version..
             | 
             | If the new version fail you boot back to the old original
             | version that is know to be working and have not being
             | replaced..
             | 
             | The ideia is to ensure a known to be working system is
             | always available..
        
             | ziml77 wrote:
             | It's never been a great argument. Even non-atomic Linux
             | distros have you reboot after updates. It's just the safest
             | way to ensure that everything is running with the updated
             | packages. You're kind of in an untested state if you have
             | mixed versions of applications and their dependencies
             | running.
             | 
             | Plus, updates aren't the only thing that require reboots.
             | Various config changes will need a reboot or at least
             | require you to log out and back in. Even just adding your
             | user to a group needs you to end your session for the
             | change to apply.
        
               | mixmastamyk wrote:
               | User group can be updated within a terminal when needed.
        
         | zozbot234 wrote:
         | >But what is "atomic and transactional Linux"?
         | 
         | It's a glorified Live CD, with added "persistence" for user
         | data. Updates are done by replacing the system install (which
         | is readonly during normal operation, just like a Live CD) and
         | rebooting, with an A+B mechanism enabling seamless updates
         | during operation, as well as rollback if the new install fails.
         | It's the modern "cattle not pets" approach to system
         | administration: every system is running a well-defined
         | ("atomic") Live CD equivalent, not something bespoke that's the
         | unpredictable result of partial updates and/or edits on the
         | running system.
        
           | finaard wrote:
           | No, updates are done by creating a snapshot of the read only
           | mounted root, and applying the packages via the usual package
           | manager in there. The snapshot only becomes active at reboot,
           | and if starting fails it'll revert automatically back to the
           | last known working snapshot for the next boot.
           | 
           | Things like /etc are writeable, so you don't need to reboot
           | for simple configuration changes.
           | 
           | You can run it just like always with all packages installed -
           | it's just not recommended as the additional complexity on
           | updates increases the risk that manual intervention is
           | needed, and tooling is good enough that for a lot of stuff
           | you don't really need it there. Like, toolbox or distrobox as
           | podman based containers running in the host namespace (either
           | as user or root), allowing persistent installation of debug
           | tools, without having to reboot.
        
             | tommica wrote:
             | Really well explained - I use fedora kinoite, and have had
             | hard time grasping how the immutability exactly works when
             | compared to traditional setup.
             | 
             | I would add to this that homebrew is a nice tool for being
             | able to install software that are not in flatpaks and if
             | you do not want to add too many layers to the "os-tree".
             | 
             | The fact that home is shared between all the distro- and
             | toolboxes is a bit annoying, because I would like to have
             | stronger isolation from the host in some projects.
             | 
             | Also doing basic polyglot stuff is a bit messy, if you have
             | toolboxes like "node" and "php". But if you have project
             | based boxes, then you end up with billion copies of node.
             | 
             | But what a pleasure it is to just update the base image and
             | have things work, or rollback if something fails. Hell, you
             | can even rebase the base image to some other setup, and
             | most likely have your system work.
        
         | yangikan wrote:
         | Is there a linux distribution that comes with mac keybindings
         | and make it easy for someone with muscle memory to use both?
        
           | PufPufPuf wrote:
           | There's https://kinto.sh/ you can install on any distro. For
           | visual similarity, GNOME is already quite Mac-ish, but there
           | are distros like elementaryOS that go further by e.g. moving
           | window controls to the left side.
        
         | coderedart wrote:
         | I daily drive kalpa and also installed it on my family
         | computer. I landed on kalpa after a long time researching, so,
         | let me dump an overview of this new distro tech.
         | 
         | # Terminology
         | 
         | 1. Immutable: The core OS (/usr directory) is kept in
         | "pristine" condition by disallowing modifications.
         | - Discourage installing packages or removing packages.
         | - well-tested (as most users are running the same OS with same
         | package version)            - System upgrades are an entirely
         | new immutable copy
         | 
         | 2. Atomic/Transactional: Similar to atomicity in databases,
         | where a bunch of operations are bundled into a transaction
         | (atomic =indivisible unit), and it either succeeds completely
         | or it fails completely. Just like that, a system upgrade
         | succeeds or it doesn't. There's no partial package updates.
         | 
         | NOTE: kalpa in particular, uses suse-microos tech called
         | Transactional-Update
         | https://documentation.suse.com/sles/15-SP7/html/SLES-all/cha...
         | 
         | # Atomic styles
         | 
         | 4 mainstream models of immutable distros:
         | 
         | 1. declarative-config: ALL your system configuration in a
         | config file eg: package versions, network config, user accounts
         | and so on. eg: NixOS, BlendOS
         | 
         | 2. OSTree-based: You use cloud/container (OCI) technology (eg:
         | docker files) to layer upon existing layers (eg: pre-baked
         | system images). eg: fedora's atomic spins, vanillaOS,
         | endlessOS. So, fedora coreOS is the base layer -> atomic spins
         | like silverblue/kinoite layer desktop packages like gnome/kde
         | etc.. -> the infamous gaming distro "bazzite" layers gaming
         | packages like wine/steam/drivers etc. and so on.
         | 
         | 3. Btrfs-snapshot-based: You take a btrfs snapshot of your root
         | partition before upgrading, so that you can boot into it if the
         | upgrade fails. eg: suse-microos family (kalpa belongs here),
         | chimeraOS
         | 
         | 4. systemd-mkosi based: You essentially "curate" an entire OS
         | filesystem in a directory using mkosi and deploy it as an
         | immutable disk image. eg: kdelinux
         | 
         | NOTE: systemd-mkosi is the vision of systemd maintainers as
         | mentioned here: https://0pointer.net/blog/fitting-everything-
         | together.html . There's a whole bunch of system features in
         | development to achieve this ideal.
         | 
         | Most of these distros (except btrfs-based) simply use the A/B
         | root system. They just maintain two root partitions/images, put
         | any upgrade into the "other" partition, mark that as live and
         | the current partition as backup. If the boot into the new
         | partition fails, they just boot into the backup partition and
         | just wait for next upgrade.
         | 
         | As they don't allow usage of system package manager, you are
         | supposed do package management at _user_ level. For gui apps,
         | you resort to flatpak. For other utilities, you usually pick
         | homebrew or language-specific tools like cargo, pip /npm etc..
         | 
         | # The magical tool called Distrobox
         | 
         | This runs containers in userspace and tries to integrate them
         | into your system as much as possible.
         | 
         | A lot of software development requires system level services or
         | shell access or install dependencies etc.. You obviously can't
         | do that on host, as system package management is essentially
         | forbidden and half the point of immutable distros is to keep
         | the host "clean".
         | 
         | So, you create a container and do all your development in
         | there. If it gets too dirty, you just delete it and create a
         | new one.
         | 
         | Personally, I use an arch container for development, as it has
         | all the bleeding edge packages and the convenient AUR too.
         | vscode (from flatpak) supports connecting to containers using
         | official remote extension. I also run a media server inside it.
         | You can also install any system packages or cmdline utilities
         | you want inside it (eg: codecs, ollama, etc..).
         | 
         | # Why kalpa over others?
         | 
         | - Great KDE polish that suse is known for
         | 
         | - btrfs tech is mature and was already used in suse for years,
         | the atomic system is very simple to understand and you can just
         | pick the snapshot you want at boot menu.
         | 
         | - Despite being immutable, customizing the system (eg:
         | installing a driver, kernel modules, firewalls etc. ) is easy
         | too.                 - just enter a transactional update shell
         | - this creates a new mutable snapshot of the current system and
         | chroots into it            - run all the commands you want
         | inside the shell. eg: install/remove packages, enable services
         | etc.            - exit shell. This will mark the transaction as
         | success/complete and set the snapshot as live for next boot.
         | 
         | - Minimal by default.
         | 
         | - Updates are fast/tiny, as they are just routine rolling
         | release updates from tumbleweed repos.
         | 
         | There are some problems too:
         | 
         | - single maintainer
         | 
         | - less popular, compared to alternatives like fedora-based
         | atomic spins.
         | 
         | - It's based on tumbleweed, so, you get _lots_ of tiny updates
         | (almost daily). Fedora based, for example, have weekly /bi-
         | weekly updates.
         | 
         | - still in alpha stage (but once you set it up, it's rock
         | solid).
         | 
         | - Immutability is still a new concept, and flatpaks are rough
         | around the edges. Expect bugs. Mutable/traditional distros are
         | still easier to use, as that has been "the way" forever.
        
       | stryan wrote:
       | Kalpa is great and hits way above its alpha status; I've been
       | running it on my laptop for months now with zero issues. It's
       | been really nice to not have to worry about updates, just gotta
       | reboot it every now and then and most things just work.
        
         | wasting_time wrote:
         | Which things do not "just work"?
        
           | spacemule wrote:
           | I can't think of anything that doesn't just work in that it's
           | broken in some way. There are things that are different. I've
           | been using MicroOS with Plasma for at least 4 years now on my
           | personal machine and my work laptop. At some point they
           | changed the name to Kalpa. There were some times in there
           | where things were broken and it needed to roll back and pause
           | automatic updates for a few days, but otherwise it functions
           | just as expected.
           | 
           | A couple of annoyances exist. For example IDEs want to use
           | the system's shell, so you have to make a custom entry to use
           | your distrobox. Tools like python, node, tofu, etc are
           | installed in a distrobox and then exported with `distrobox-
           | export -b $(which $BINARY)` so that you can call them from
           | the IDE.
           | 
           | For me, it's worth those few rough edges. When I install an
           | OS for non-technical people who just need a web browser, I
           | install Kalpa. It looks close enough to Windows to be easy to
           | use, and it's never broken in a way I can't explain over the
           | phone or a text how to fix.
           | 
           | It even passed the wife test in our house. It took a few
           | years of marriage to convince her that her laptop shouldn't
           | take 30 minutes to boot and open Chrome. She let me switch
           | her over to Kalpa (it may have still been called MicroOS
           | Desktop then) a few years back. That old laptop is still
           | kicking and fast enough for her needs. Had she stuck with
           | Windows, it'd be a brick now because of the requirements for
           | upgrading to W10 and 11.
        
       | giancarlostoro wrote:
       | I wanted to try an Atomic Linux, I think I tried the Fedora
       | flavor, nothing really worked for me for some reason, I gave in
       | to Arch and tried it a la EndeavourOS. Have not looked back
       | since.
        
         | ogogmad wrote:
         | You might know this, but unfortunately, if you leave an Arch
         | install unused for enough time, and then run an update, you
         | might not be able to boot into a working desktop.
         | 
         | [EDIT]
         | 
         | Oh, and I had a lot of problems installing Kalpa (from the
         | submission) - all which I got fixed by using ChatGPT.
        
           | giancarlostoro wrote:
           | I've left it for a long time and also run it daily sometimes,
           | still no issues. My understanding is brick level changes
           | usually are fixed quickly.
        
             | fhn wrote:
             | brick level changes will render the device unusable. You
             | dismiss it like it was no big deal to brick a device.
        
               | giancarlostoro wrote:
               | Eh I misspoke, I don't think you can actually brick
               | anything with this, its just it might not boot properly,
               | you can still format over it, or fix it if you run a LIVE
               | Linux disk to rollback. You also always have an option to
               | run previous system configuration.
               | 
               | The more I think about it, I don't even use Pacman, I
               | just use the other tool that comes with Endeavuor, which
               | is a face to Pacman and probably shields me from doing
               | doofus things. Pacman is easy to screw up an update with.
        
               | 0134340 wrote:
               | EOSupdate is basically just a yay and pacman script, as I
               | understand it.
        
             | ogogmad wrote:
             | How long is a long time? I left mine for 2 years.
        
           | ziml77 wrote:
           | I left an Arch install sitting for a few months and came back
           | and had trouble getting the updates to properly install.
           | Seems the advice around it is basically just don't go that
           | long without updating.
        
           | pamcake wrote:
           | Bollocks. This can happen for any distro or OS. Stick to
           | distro packages and this isn't notably more true for Arch
           | than for most other distros or OSs.
           | 
           | If you build and install packages from AUR, or use dodgy
           | repos like Manjaro, then risk of update woes will increase
           | significantly.
        
       | 999900000999 wrote:
       | This is a cool idea, but it's not clear what problem it's
       | solving. Tumbleweed is already great
        
         | benrutter wrote:
         | I was trying to figure out the change as well - I've only used
         | Tumbleweed through WSL before. Does it provide a desktop
         | environment preinstalled or is it a 'bring-your-own' deal? (if
         | not, that seems to be the big thing that Kalpa brings to the
         | table?)
        
           | 999900000999 wrote:
           | Tumbleweed comes with desktop environment options. You can
           | select from a few.
           | 
           | I guess you get the atomic system, but with Tumbleweed you
           | get snapshot backups anyway.
           | 
           | One of the main advantages of Tumbleweed is the extensive
           | testing pipeline. I'm not sure how a derivative would be able
           | to offer a similar experience
        
         | whalesalad wrote:
         | "I have a minor inconvenience -- I know, I'll create an
         | entirely new distribution where 99.92% is identical to the
         | base"
        
           | amlib wrote:
           | How else are you going to improve the linux gene pool?
           | Breeding linux distros ain't gonna cut it :)
        
           | ogogmad wrote:
           | Being able to roll back updates/upgrades that go wrong, is
           | not just fixing a minor inconvenience. There's also something
           | about the critical part of the system being less mutable.
           | Desktop Linux has been way too easy to break in the past.
        
             | awoimbee wrote:
             | Tubleweed has snapshots and rollbacks too by default. But
             | yeah immutable distros are good for beginners so they don't
             | destroy their system!
        
             | whalesalad wrote:
             | The OS this is based on, Tumbleweed, is what provides that
             | capability. I do not think there is anything novel here.
        
         | mhurron wrote:
         | Kalpa is an immutable distro based on MicroOS with KDE as it's
         | desktop environment.
         | 
         | MicroOS and its derivatives are all based on Tumbleweed.
         | MicroOS was intended to be used for container workloads. Aeon
         | grew out of that with a GNOME desktop, Kalpa a KDE desktop.
         | Because they were focused in a way Tumbleweed is not, they are
         | a more opinionated distro. On the other hand, Tumbleweed is a
         | rolling distro that wants to be all things for everyone.
        
       | sach1 wrote:
       | This rules but the landing page could benefit from a Download Now
       | type button for the iso page.
        
       | zokier wrote:
       | This blog post might provide useful context:
       | https://sfalken.tech/posts/2024-06-08-how-do-aeon-and-kalpa-...
        
       | TiredOfLife wrote:
       | What's with the Ventoy hate. Every linux distro can be installed
       | with Ventoy except for SuSe ones
        
         | jackhalford wrote:
         | I've had trouble installing proxmox with ventoy, I had to
         | install debian and then proxmox as a package. AFAIK there isn't
         | really an alternative to ventoy?
        
           | wpm wrote:
           | I like the iODD virtual disc drives, I have an ST400 that has
           | been pretty reliable aside from complaining when the iso
           | files are too "fragmented".
        
         | LiamPowell wrote:
         | It silently messes with the kernel boot flags which breaks the
         | boot process If you do get it to work it silently adds extra
         | broken repos which make it impossible to install packages.
         | 
         | Why would any distro want to support a tool that intentionally
         | breaks things? Ventoy could just boot ISOs without messing with
         | them and everything would work fine, but the developers insist
         | on injecting garbage.
        
         | spookie wrote:
         | You really shouldn't trust ventoy.
        
         | tosti wrote:
         | SuSE doesn't ship ventoy and the installer does boot and work
         | just fine. It's likely a bug in ventoy. SuSE doesn't test that
         | and why would they?
         | 
         | Perhaps ventoy doesn't like SuSE.
        
       | raphinou wrote:
       | I've installed https://getaurora.dev/en/, another atomic Linux
       | distro, for a non technical user and find it really good. I've
       | read arguments that its architecture was better than kalpa, but I
       | don't find it back and I have no sufficient knowledge or
       | experience of both to have an opinion.
        
         | wongogue wrote:
         | For the uninitiated, it's another UniversalBlue project just
         | like the popular Bazzite. It focuses on a general computing
         | usecase instead of gaming.
        
       | butILoveLife wrote:
       | Has anyone had a good long term experience with Atomic?
       | 
       | I admittedly only used it on a 13 year old gaming computer and
       | couldn't get the GPU drivers because... you know containers.
       | 
       | This is something trivial with a regular install. (Especially
       | with LLMs to assist)
       | 
       | I want to like Atomic, but it feels like an Apple-like regression
       | in computing.
        
         | sph wrote:
         | I have run Fedora Silverblue on my workstation since 2021 at
         | least and I wouldn't go back to a regular distro ever. I'll
         | jump ship for an immutable distro not based on RPMs (or APT)
         | which I loathe.
         | 
         | The secret is that all your power is within a distrobox
         | container. All my dev tools, Emacs are in an Arch Linux
         | container.
        
         | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
         | The difference between this and apple is that at the end of the
         | day it still believes the user should hold the power. With
         | Kalpa, you _can_ persistently modify the operating system using
         | transactional-update, you 're just strongly advised to keep
         | that to a minimum.
        
       | sherr wrote:
       | This appears to be a "pre-beta" site, so this will be why it is
       | not polished yet. From the documentation page :
       | 
       | "note: These installation instructions will be changing, with the
       | Beta release of Kalpa"
       | 
       | A bit rough around the edges - so probably unfair to publicise
       | too prominently yet.
        
       | shevy-java wrote:
       | Isn't OpenSUSE for sale? At the least distrowatch said this
       | recently.
        
         | hiprob wrote:
         | What do you mean by that? SUSE products are for sale, OpenSUSE
         | products are free.
        
           | tosti wrote:
           | A private equity firm aptly named EQT bought SuSE from their
           | previous owners in 2018. Now they want to sell it off.
           | 
           | Ofc the distro can be installed for free. Owning the business
           | sets you back some $6 billion.
        
       | KeyBoardG wrote:
       | Are they still managing versions and rollback via BTRFS
       | snapshots?
        
         | stryan wrote:
         | Yep, using snapper, same as tumbleweed.
        
       | vishnuharidas wrote:
       | A screenshot is the bare minimum for such things.
        
         | steve1977 wrote:
         | It's an atomic Linux distribution with KDE. A screenshot would
         | look like any other KDE screenshot.
        
       | drnick1 wrote:
       | I am not sure I fully understand the usability trade-offs when it
       | comes to these "atomic" distros. One the one hand, security seems
       | to improve markedly, since the root filesystem is largely
       | immutable. On the other hand, it does seem that a lot of
       | straightforward things become harder. I generally dislike
       | flatpaks and favor a low-level, bare-metal approach to things and
       | atomic distros seem to go against that. Maybe I should just run
       | some experiments in a VM.
        
         | coderbants wrote:
         | The idea is that the immutability of the operating system leads
         | to greater stability. The partition should (in theory) be
         | exactly as the distribution expects on every computer it's
         | installed to, which limits the potential for user changes
         | breaking anything. The benefit to the user is that it's a lot
         | harder to shoot yourself in the foot by running the wrong
         | script.
        
         | Vinnl wrote:
         | For me, the point is not security, but maintenance. Whenever
         | system upgrades have gone wrong, it's almost always been a
         | partial update, and that just no longer happens.
         | 
         | I've found doing work in containers made things straightforward
         | enough, as a developer. Though I still somewhat think that
         | that's just moving the problem - I'm not quite keeping those
         | containers up-to-date. `distrobox assemble` helps a bit though.
        
       | Pwntastic wrote:
       | i misread the name as "Kapla" and thought it was a reference to
       | the Klingon word "Qapla'"
        
       | gethly wrote:
       | since flatpacks/snaps/appimages are containerized-ish, i see no
       | point in these immutable distros any more. also, cosmic is where
       | the focus of linux desktop should be, not kde or gnome.
        
         | mixmastamyk wrote:
         | Perhaps another "container," for the basic system.
        
       | miggol wrote:
       | Been running Aeon, the Gnome version of Kalpa, on my personal
       | laptop for about six months now. I came from Tumbleweed so the
       | learning curve wasn't steep. Overall the experience has been
       | good!
       | 
       | The one major issue I had from the start was non-free Bluetooth
       | codecs like AptX. That required me to taint the base image and
       | add a non-official repo. It was messy but that was mostly down to
       | it being a learning process, if I had to do it again I could
       | probably do it with a single run of `transactional-update shell`.
       | 
       | The installer is super minimal and surprisingly user-friendly.
       | One thing I remember is that there was zero partitioning choice:
       | just use the full disk for encrypted btrfs and you get no swap
       | (but zram swap is on by default). If you use OpenSUSE with secure
       | boot enabled (as intended) then hibernate is prevented by
       | `kernel_lockdown` anyway.
       | 
       | Snapper by default is nice, but you also get that with
       | Tumbleweed. I ran into no applications that I couldn't get from
       | Flatpaks or export from a distrobox, the latter being mostly for
       | obscure stuff I need to compile myself. And my main toolbox hosts
       | my Emacs environment that I spend most of my time in besides
       | Firefox.
       | 
       | It's hard to recommend a MicroOS desktop over Tumbleweed, the
       | latter being a great all-purpose distro as it is. But I'm hoping
       | the benefits of forcing this "rootless" paradigm on myself will
       | appear when it's time to move to a new machine. Just copy over my
       | home directory and distroboxes and I'm golden, I could even
       | switch to ARM without hesitation.
       | 
       | The distroboxes help with migrating because if I want to compile
       | a newer version of that obscure program from earlier, I don't
       | have to hunt down all the arcane requirements again. They're all
       | still there waiting for me, in a Fedora/Ubuntu/Arch/whatever
       | distrobox, depending on what works best for that program. At
       | least that's the theory.
       | 
       | Happy to answer questions.
        
         | ogogmad wrote:
         | I did some manual partitioning when installing Kalpa: I added a
         | Swap partition whose capacity I set equal to RAM + 2GB, which
         | got hibernate working.
         | 
         | I think Hibernate is strictly better than Sleep: Why should a
         | computer still use power when it isn't doing anything? And if
         | you could get a desktop to recover its state before a full
         | reboot without using Hibernate, then why would you need Sleep
         | anyway?
        
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