The lastest FOSS Academic post is a whiny, weedy gripe session where I talk about being nervous about installing new Linux distros:
https://fossacademic.tech/2025/11/09/contained.html
Basically, between Snaps, Flatpaks, Wayland, and Secure Boot, installing a fresh Linux distro on a machine isn't quite as fun as it used to be. But, what can I do? Switch to Microsoft?
Hell, no!
@rwg For me it's the complete opposite. I've been using #Linux for 15 years and I was always unhappy with outdated applications (unless you run a rolling release), the mess of automatically and manually installed packages (apt on Debian, less so on Ubuntu) and config directories that persist after uninstalling an app.
Since the release of Chrome OS I admired how it does seamless auto updates. I was also jealous of how Android apps are sandboxed and don't leave traces after uninstalling them.
I now use Fedora Atomic (Kinoite) since a couple of years and I absolutely love it. Everything is automatically updated and it just works. Upgrades are one command and are very reliable.
Sure, setting up a development environment with VSCodium as a Flatpak is more complicated than with a traditional package. But in return I can reproduce my setup on any Linux distribution that runs Flatpak. So once I've learned how to do things this way, I can just reproduce it on any distribution and it works.
My reasons for using Linux also evolved. At first I switched to it (as a child), because I wanted an open-source operating system and tried to avoid big tech.
Nowadays I also choose Linux, because especially with Flatpak and OCI containers, it's just much more convenient, modern and advanced than other operating systems.
Using Windows feels really strange to me now, since all applications run unsandboxed and can freely edit the registry or random files on the file system.
@rwg this is interesting and I now want to hear someone who's super knowledgeable on packets and X11/Wayland to chime in!
