ELI5: What is an immutable OS, in practical terms?
I've heard of immutable OS's like Fedora Silverblue. As far as I understand it, this means that "system files" are read-only, and that this is more secure.
What I struggle to understand is, what does that mean in practical terms? How does installing packages or configuring software work, if system files can't be changed?
Another thing I don't really understand is what the benefits as an end user? What kinds of things can I do (or can be done by malware or someone else) to my Arch system that couldn't be done on an immutable system? I get that there's a security benefit just in that malware can't change system files -- but that is achieved by proper permission management on traditional systems too.
And I understand the benefit of something declarative like NixOS or Guix, which are also immutable. But a lot of OS's seem to be immutable but not purely declarative. I'm struggling to understand why that's useful.
I'm generally a Windows user, but on the verge of doing a trial run of Fedora Silverblue (just need to find the time). It sounds like a great solution to my.. complicated... history with Linux.
I've installed Linux dozens of times going back to the 90s (LinuxPPC anyone? Yellow Dog?), and I keep going back to Windows because I tweak everything until it breaks. Then I have no idea how I got to that point, but no time to troubleshoot. Easily being able to get back to a stable system that isn't a fresh install sounds great.
I've been using the same distro for at least 4 years now and I haven't ever had any issues. Fedora on a desktop at home. It's very stable. You don't even need to know too much... although obviously knowing your way around the terminal and knowing some basic things about Linux helps
You don't understand what it's like for people who love to fiddle with settings and options without knowing what they do
You can also check btrfs and snapper