Nothing has changed

I don't believe anything has changed neurologically or psychologally in the last decades.

There have always been people who are more susceptible to consume "trashy" (provoking, easy to consume) media.

Once it was low-quality newspapers (a german band once refered to them as "fear, hate, tits and the weather forecast", which fits really well!), then it was trash TV, then mobile games, and now TikTok and stuff. Some people are just attracted to flashy stuff and can't get enough dopamine.

It's just that the latter example is very new, and everything new is automatically bad, no matter what.

There have always been young people who read books, create art, video game, listen or create music, have hobbies, and so on.

BUT, something has changed:

One word: attention economy. Capitalism realized, that especially in combination with ads, you can create A LOT of money by making easy to consume content.

If a platform uses dark patterns (emotional or funny content, reinforcement, short content instead of longer stuff, flashy stuff, likes, endless scrolling, keeping you as long as possible in the app, etc.), it makes a lot more money with it's users.

Years of algorithms perfectionized manipulating you and your attention span with supernatural stimuli (as mentioned above).

What to do with those informations?

Notice, how boring Lemmy, RSS-feeds, and stuff like that are?

After checking my posts for this day, I'm done and do something different, like cleaning the kitchen. Now, I'm on the toilet and don't have anything else to do, and I have fun answering you :)

That's how our devices should work. I don't wanna be a slave, I want to own my device, and not the other way around.

Tbh, I'm grateful Reddit went downhill. A year ago I could never imagine nuking my account.

I spent my whole teenage and now adult years (15 - now) on that shithole, was super addicted and couldn't spend 2 minutes without checking my phone, even in meetings, dates, and so on. It was just as bad as vaping for me. I knew, that it was slowly killing every brain cell, but "loved" it too much.

Thanks, u/spez ❤️ You killed Reddit for me and made my new "Reddit" (-> Lemmy, but with the same app) THAT boring for me I bought an e-reader now to read books instead😂

Debian. I don't see much benefit of Ubuntu LTS compared to plain old Debian. It's exactly what you wanted.

Alternatively, AlmaLinux is a good choice if you like Red Hat stuff (RHEL clone), but the difference between Ubuntu LTS and Debian would be almost not noticeable for you I think.

It's basically Nobara, but properly done. (If you choose the desktop version)

It gets updates automatically (max one day after upstream Fedora), has everything you want ootb in the first start wizard, is more secure, and much more.

I was very sceptical at first, but after trying it out, I really noticed some minor performance improvements in games and many QoL improvements, e.g. the preinstalled LACT, which allows me to set up fan curves and over-/ underclock my GPU.

Setting up my new PC took me about half an hour maximum.

9/10, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a smooth gaming experience.

Fedora is community based and "independent" from RedHat.

In the past, they often actively decided against RHs interests and will continue doing that in the future.
Independend in " because RH puts lots of dev power and $ into the Fedora Project, and loosing that would hurt.

It's a symbiotic relationship: RH provides money and developers, while we as users test for new technologies that will get used for RHEL in the future.

The increased ressources provides us with more (also financial) security. Still, if RH somehow decides to abandon Fedora, it will still continue to live on, see Project uBlue as example.

Also, calling everything you dislike "communist" is just dumb, there are way better words for that... Either, you use communism in the terms of "totalitarian government" like Stalin was, which is just... unfitting (Holodomor, etc.); or you don't get that promoting community based distros is more socialist than you realize.

Just say "I don't like stuff forced on me from corporations like Canonical" and don't use Ubuntu and thereof. Nobody hinders you in using what you want, and that's great!

Maybe ask the company if they can get you an O365-Account, so you can just use the web version of it or install that as webapp.

Sorry to say, but employees cost so much money in salary, those few bucks for software licenses are just minor.

Proton is just the compatibility layer, which allows you to play Windows games on Linux.

It's one of the main reasons so many people switched to Linux in the last months and years, since Proton gets even better from week to week. Something, games designed for Windows run even better on Linux (Proton) than on Windows!

From what I've heard, requiring Proton isn't that bad, especially for the devs. Often, games engineered for Windows run better on Linux than the same ones for Linux.

I see many people here wondering, why they should consider an immutable system.
As someone, who thought the same a few months ago, and now chose Silverblue, here are reasons why:

• Atomic updates: never worry about half applied installations anymore. Either your OS updates successfully, or it will just work like before.

• Less bugs and better security: every install is the same, so devs can fix one bug or exploit, recreatable on every system.

• Automatic updates (configurable): they get downloaded by the way, without you noticing. And if you reboot anyway, you boot into your updated OS. No waiting times. The system manages itself.

• Way harder to break

• Changes are easily undoable: if an update breaks anything, you can just select another image and reboot, without recovering anything.

• No junk accumulation over time, the OS is kept clean

• Clear distinction between "your" stuff and the OS

• You can "swap out" the base OS cleanly and keep your stuff. Want KDE? No need to reinstall, just paste one command and delete everything Gnome-related, and you are now on Kinoite.

• Flexibility: choose between dozens of different images, like one that replicates SteamOS or Ubuntu, has the MS Surface kernel build in, offers Hyprland, and so on...

• And much more!

My #1 reason is, that everything is worry free.

Those advantages above don't apply to "normal" OSs, even, if I keep everything in Distrobox and Flatpaks.

Immutable OSs aren't called "The future of Linux" without reason. They usually shouldn't impair anyone, and make the whole Linux ecosystem better in any aspect.

I find that really cool, BUT, you should delete that link.

First, installing a tweaked Windows version from somebody else is risky. It's hard to check if you included malware for example. I mean, I trust you that you didn't do that, but it's still risky. That alone isn't the reason you should delete it. If I install a malware-version, it's my fault, who cares.

The real reason you should delete that immediately is because it's illegal! The licence doesn't allow you to share Windows. With scripts on your own install its a grey area, but sharing installs or isos is definitely not allowed and everyone here could report you for that to MS, the police, the admins, whoever.

Anzeige ist raus! (Jk)

It sucks that they don't allow a survey without logging in first. Had to create an account extra for taking part...

Logseq. I love it so much I bought the sync-access to support the project!

Just use Bazzite. It updated automatically to F40 just a few hours after upstream, still has all security settings intact and is a joy to use.

yeah yeah there's flathub and stuff but that's more of a last resort, optimally, you want to get it the correct way.

Dude, there is no correct or wrong way. Many prefer Flatpaks, because they ship with all they need and work on every distro.

Also, you can just use Distrobox on any distro and use anything you want.

But calling Arch easier than Zorin or similar is just wrong.

• On Linux, you don't download random stuff from the internet, e.g. a new browser. You get it from a central source, usually package manager, where it is verified and secure.
• Most stuff is open source, therefore we can check if it does weird stuff. Proprietary software is often seen critically in our community.
• Linux is usually always updated because of the central update mechanism, so that vulnerabilities are fixed very quickly.
• Linux has more granular permissions. There's no "allow nothing" (but still too much) or "give random software access to the whole device" like on Windows. Linux software is written to need only as many permissions as needed, but not much more.
• Containers are big and crucial, especially when immutable distros grow more popular (even better security!). Many of use use Flatpak because of those pros. With them, we can give or remove every permission, like network access, file system, etc.
• Antivirus is almost useless, it won't always work reliably, see it more as an additional measure. Many AVs are close to being malware themselfes. They may act as indicator, but not as safeguard for viruses.
• If you share stuff with people using Windows, ClamAV is still handy.
• We aren't safe from viruses too, but we try to minimize our attack vector as much as we can with those methods mentioned above.
• Windows viruses can still be executed with WINE, so use Bottles (container for WINE) when running Windows software.

This sounds like the most reasonable answer here in this thread. I couldn't have said it better.

Preferences don't matter if you get paid for it. If your job demands working with software designed for Windows, then use Windows. If you don't do that, you have to find workarounds that cost time and therefore money, both if you are self employed or have to work for a company.
Either you, or your boss, won't be happy long term.

If you like Linux more, then use it in your free time, or maybe consider switching your orientation for development to that platform.

Same for development for Apple stuff (e.g. iPhone apps). Then you're stuck with MacOS too. Or if you have to use certain CAD or Adobe software, then you're stuck on Windows/ Mac too.

Software availability is great on Linux, and today, you can get most of the stuff working on it, even if it isn't designed for that. But is it worth it that time and effort? For me, it wouldn't.

Do that and keep my updated ✌️

While most changes (file manager improvements, etc.) are cool to have and are just improvements to the overall experience, what's up with the "fractional scaling and Mutter improvements"?

Why does nobody explain them more? At least for me, fractional scaling is the first thing that comes to my mind when thinking about what Gnome needs the most.
And performance improvements are also good to hear, but in which aspect? Triple dynamic buffering?

Does anyone have further information?

Fedora is, at least in theory, 100% community maintained and owned.
Red Hat sponsors this project (developers and money), in the hopes, that most of it gets upstreamed to RHEL, acting as a "testing ground".

It happened often, and will happen again many times, that the Fedora team decides against interests of RH.

It's a great symbiosis: we, as a community, get an extremely well maintained and professional distro, and RH gets feedback.

Also, side note, the "advertisement" of the RH-ecosystem works. If it weren't because of CasaOS (the web interface and docker management), I would use Almalinux (RHEL clone) instead of Debian, since I'm just used to Fedora and feel more confident in it.

Canonical: "Hey, I've heard you all hate Snaps."
Community: "Yeah, they suck! Use Flatpaks and other technologies instead, like everyone else."
Canonical: "Alright. Here's a whole distro with Snaps at its' base. You're welcome!"
Community: "..."

Where I live, electricity is also very expensive. I monitor every watt.

I asked the same question half a year ago, here's what I've learnt: RPis tend to be less reliable and aren't that energy efficient. They're great for small appliances, but for servers (e.g. NAS) not as much.

Get an used Thinclient/ mini PC. They cost something between 50-150€ and give you a huge performance boost, more ports, a x86 architecture, are better repairable (still often bad) and more.

Mine uses about 10-15 W on normal use, and 20 rarely when my cloud is under heavy use.

Ubuntu has become very controversial.

It used to be good and paved the way of today's Linux desktop world, but nowadays, the Corporation behind it, Canonical, decided to shit on its user base.

• Once, they decided to make advertisements for Amazon a few years ago, which they've reverted
• They now make ads in the terminal for "Ubuntu Pro"
• And, mostly, they force their own and highly controversial package format (Snaps) onto users. You almost can't get around them, even if you actively decide for it.

If you want something non-BS, use Mint or Fedora.

Yeah a lot of this chart just doesn’t make sense to me. You trolling op?

That's rude, man. If you don't like it, do it better. I've spent half my weekend for it, and gave my best. I wouldn't invest so much time if my sole purpose is only trolling.

But, that's what the comment section is for - if others think the same way as you do, yours will be one of the top comments.
I made a post a few days before, where I collected some opinions and double checked if I'm wrong.
If others think differently about certain points, feel free to correct me or add information.

For example, pop os uses a very opinionated version of gnome? Since when? Seems barely modified to my eye.

Yes, it is highly modified compared to the vanilla Gnome, for example, in following ways:

• Pop shell tiling
• Minimize button
• A dock
• Different workspaces
• Extensions
• Different themes/ look
• and more.

It looks and feels completely different. Not worse, just different. I don't say it's a bad modification, it feels coherent and adds value for many people.

Also you recommend kde plasma to Mac users? Gnome seems WAY closer to me.

Gnome looks only similar to MacOS on the surface, but, philosophy and usage wise, it behaves completely different.
It's completely unique in its own way, you can't compare it to anything else, except you want it to be that by using extensions.

KDE on the other hand is often compared to Windows, only because of the out-of-the-box look with the task bar on the bottom.
But, if you modify it for less than 5 minutes, it looks and behaves almost like MacOS does, e.g. ALT + space opening up KRunner (Spotlight).

I don’t get why you’d spend so much time if your info is all just going to be a little bit wrong

Tell me exactly what is wrong, and I'll correct it if the need arises.

I think you should check out Bazzite or uBlue.
They're both based on the immutable versions of Fedora, but more or less slightly tweaked.

I would recommend them over Nobara. Nobara is very insecure and a one-man-project, and I don't know if that are criteria for a solid distro.

The atomic Fedora spins on the other hand have many advantages:

• secure
• self maintaining and easy to use
• unbreakable, and you can roll back easily in case something breaks
• work out of the box
• you can select the -nvidia images and then your drivers are already baked in, since they are known to break or cause problems.

Bazzite is an attempt to "clone" SteamOS/ Nobara, and provides you with a great out of the box gaming setup.
The other uBlue spins are more vanilla and general purpose.

You could also check out VanillaOS, which is currently under development, but very focused on simplicity and newcomers.

Your questions:

• Nvidia: see my uBlue answer. They're baked in and the best setup. If you want a traditional mutable distro, like Fedora, Mint, etc., you can install them with one click, but they might cause problems.
• Game compatibility: look at protondb.com A lot of Anticheat software works, but a lot more don't. Depends. Remember to activate Proton in Steam, or most games don't get shown.
• Modding software should also work, check out Bottles (Wine), but you might have to allow access to the corresponding directories, since Windows apps should and get sandboxed.
• X/ Wayland: Just try WL and see if it causes problems. With the proprietary Nvidia drivers, and especially Gnome, it should work fine and is in general way better (smoother, etc.) than X

@babara@lemmy.ml
The difference with Fedora Atomic, which I think you refer to, is that it's totally open. For example, people started using the OCI containers differently than Fedora intended, which resulted in uBlue and stuff like Bazzite.

Also, no one forces you to use Flatpak. You can still use Distrobox and use Pacman/ APT/ DNF/ whatever you prefer and export your apps that way. It's just that Flatpak "won" and doesn't have many drawbacks, and is very convenient. I mostly like them.

And, most importantly, Fedora is the fronteer of innovation.
There were many projects and ideas that failed, but many more succedded (Wayland, image based distros, etc.), and Project Atomic is just one more "testing ground" that is well thought out imo. Therefore people are expecting to "test out" new generation Linux stuff, it's just part of Fedora. If you don't like that, use Debian instead.

I can recommend you to give Fedora Atomic a chance, it's an extremely nice family of distros (e.g. Bluefin/ Aurora, Bazzite, etc.)!

Edit: one more thing is that Fedora is, in contrast to Ubuntu, not controlled by a company. RedHat doesn't have nearly as much influence as people think, it's mainly community driven, and therefore choices aren't (in theory) influenced by $$$

Wow, awesome!
I HAVE to try this out!

(Copypasting an answer to another comment on this post, slightly modified, here, so it reaches more people.)

I had a MS Surface too a while back.
After installing Linux, it felt like a totally different device. Just like you, I thought "That is how it was supposed to be!".

I strongly recommend you to try the silverblue-main-surface-image from universal-blue.org.

Why?

• Because you need the linux-surface-kernel for it to work properly. Otherwise, most functions, like touchscreen, webcam, adaptive brightness, auto-rotate and more won't work at all.
• You can install the kernel on other distros too, but it might break. I had that already happening. On uBlue, it's baked in and won't break. And if it does, you can just roll back.
• It comes with Gnome by default and provides you a great touchscreen experience
• And you can install Waydroid easily, which gives you access to Android apps. Distrobox is already pre-installed and gives you access to the software of every distro available, including Arch.

I don't recommend using another DE than Gnome for that. Especially those "light weight" ones like XFCE are horrible for touchscreens, and if you use a browser, those few hundred MBs RAM less used by them is negotiable.

Gnome is, like it or not, king for devices like that. The gestures on touchscreen, big icons, and more, is only surpassed by Android.

I love this idea!
I really would appreciate something like this.
In that way, everyone can still write and enjoy their own or others' stories.

Especially, since this would not only apply to newcomers, but to experienced users too, e.g. "My first week with Gentoo" or something like this. I like it!

Edit: I added your idea to the post

Fedora Silverblue

I use Fedora Silverblue, I don't know if that (still) counts as "underground"-distro.

Reason I switched: I've been distrohopping/ desktophopping for the whole time I used Linux (~2-3 years) and always came back to Fedora. I really like it's sane (for me) defaults.

Problem: I broke pretty much any system I installed after a few weeks.
Knowing enough to change everything, but doing exactly that without knowing exactly what I do and how to fix stuff is really bad.
Instead of fixing a problem, I just reinstalled. That took me just an hour everytime, but still is a bad practice, even when it's quicker.

Also, everytime I was happy with Gnome, KDE got a shiny new feature I just wanted to have, and I switched the Fedora spin, since switching DE on a used system feels really dirty and buggy.

The last time I broke my (Tumbleweed) install without actually doing anything I just said "Fuck it, even if I loose some freedom, I will now only use immutable systems from now on!".

I decided for Fedora, and oh boy...

Actually, I didn't loose much freedom or functionality at all!

(Only exception: no VPN app, I have to use the menu from Gnome; and somehow, Boxes doesn't work atm, maybe that's just a bug).

I'm now using it for 2 months and couldn't be happier!!! Why?

• Atomic updates + super quick and easy rollback support (already saved my butt) by rebooting and selecting another image.

• Clear separation between "my" stuff and the OS, which is really intuitive.

• Feels clean.

• I can rebase anytime I want (switch to KDE, a WM, and so on) with one command and no residual data or bugs.

• Self maintaining with automatic updates in the background.

• Unlimited software: not an advantage of SB, but you have to use distrobox sometimes, and I would never discovered that tool without!

• AND, a project called uBlue . You can create or download custom images, like a SteamOS/ Nobara-clone, Vanilla with QOL-changes, almost all DEs (e.g. XFCE, which is unsupported by default), and so on.

I'm really in love with Silverblue, everybody should check it out!

I was at the same spot as you a few months ago and searched for the same.
Pretty much all of the FOSS readers sucked UX wise.
There were a few great proprietary ones on the PlayStore, but they were crammed up with ads and trackers.

Lastly I switched to Librera, which was the best FOSS reader I tried.
But even that wasn't great.

So, I'll give you a completely different advice than all the other commenters here: buy yourself an e-reader.

I did the same and couldn't be more happy!
I'm a big fan of "do one thing and do it right" (I made my phone pretty dumb and also own a digital camera for example).

Readers feel superb. They have a very comfortable display (almost like reading on real paper), don't distract you and the battery lasts for weeks.
You can also sync them easily via USB.

Just don't buy a Kindle. Aim for a more open solution, like a Tolino or Kobo.

Sadly, I couldn't fine even one that was at least usable in my experience.

I model a lot for 3D-printing, and of course tried FreeCAD.
It had a very steep learning curve and is very unique in its workflow, compared to other CADs.
I somehow got the hang of it, but it still was very much not usable.
It crashed every 5 minutes, the UI is very convoluted, and even the simplest tasks take half an hour, compared to the 2 minutes it takes on other software.

Since Fusion360 doesn't work on Linux, there's pretty much only Onshape.
Apart from being a SaaS-product ("cloud based"), and therefore out of your control, which I strongly dislike, it's absolutely great UX wise.

But good news, there are people working on a solution. I will add the name of the project later if I can remember it again.
Edit: found it: https://github.com/dune3d/dune3d

There are also people forking the engine and some core features of FreeCAD and want to turn it into something better, but I don't know if they've made something out of that idea yet.

You have got to be the biggest promoter of immutable distros on lemmy.

I unironically think I might be that. One of the main reasons I wrote this post is to just send it as "read further" option when I recommend uBlue in every second thread.

If I wouldn't post other stuff, one might think I am a bot or something 😅

i feel they are great for the casual users who will just browse the web, play some games and maybe do some document reading and editing.

Yes, as one partial group. If you don't use your PC to its full potential, you won't run into problems. 90% is web based anyway.

Right now, they are super interesting especially for early adopters and experienced users. For the middle ground user, e.g. if you researched for Linux yourself but don't have much experience otherwise, you might run into some problems that require other people to help you or a bit of research on forums.
But I don't think that will happen anyway and I still would recommend it to most people.

I can't recommend Silverblue enough.

Thing is: on the "surface" it's not that much different than the "normal" Fedora and it's spins.

So, if you want something hugely different on the base, I'd recommend NixOS instead. Nix feels like "the new Arch" for me and is the tinkerer's dream. It appears to be very complicated too, so it should keep you "not bored" as you said.
I personally wouldn't use NixOS though, as I am just a "casual" user and don't want to over-complicate everything.

I personally am very happy with Silverblue, especially due to one reason: the ability to rebase to many many images.
As other commenters have stated, there's a project called uBlue.
It allows you to swap out the base OS (everything except "your stuff") with one command, so you can rebase to many different community spins and different desktops cleanly.

The uBlue base OS is just Vanilla SB with some QOL stuff added, like codecs and other stuff. It is really a "just works" distro, that manages itself and functions in the background without you noticing.

The other spins give you different DEs, preconfigured drivers, opinionated approaches to different DEs, a SteamOS clone, and so on...

Absolutely great, 10/10

NixOS

• "The new Arch"
• Very customizable and minimalist
• Semi-Immutable
• Huge community and very old
• Very different than others
• Config-based
• Not very (new) user friendly, wouldn't use it. Too complicated for me

BlendOS

• Doesn't offer much new stuff for me, nothing they offer is substantial for me.
• Small dev team

VanillaOS

• "The new Linux Mint"
• Huge focus on usability and user friendliness
• Apx is basically only a wrapper for distrobox
• Small dev team (the same one that also develops Bottles)
• Huge potential, but not quite there yet
• Will recommend it to new users when it's updated to 2.0

Silverblue

• My recommendation
• Is one of the oldest immutables and very well thought out
• Biggest dev and userbase
• You can not only install Flatpaks, but also everything else with Distrobox and rpm-ostree
• Best feature: you can easily rebase to it's other spins or the custom ones from uBlue I just rebased this weekend from the SB to the Kinoite-Spin in just one command. I was able to "change distro" without resinstalling, and KDE was installed very cleanly without leftovers.

For one thing, image based distros are very convenient. If you tell someone "Just install Bazzite", they will probably have a nice gaming experience without any tinkering, because everything is already set up for you ootb.

You have to understand the concept first. Fedora Atomic/ image based distros are built from top to bottom, not on the same level. If something changes from "above", your install will change too, to an 1:1 copy basically.
Problem is, if stock Fedora isn't allowed to ship/ doesn't have some things pre-installed, it's harder to iron out on the user level, e.g. by negatively affecting update times.

uBlue is basically a "build script", that takes the upstream image, modifies it, and redistributes that with the changes included.
In that way, the image from other users is the same as yours, with the same bugs.
This makes it more efficient and user friendly.

It also allows devs to make their "own" distro with only their changes included, while offering a very solid base they don't have to maintain themselves.

I think either PostmarketOS or Mobian would be the best existing candidates right now.
Hardware wise, the Fairphone 4 is probably the best option, especially compared to something like a Pinephone.

I tried Phosh (Gnome mobile shell) on an exhibition a while ago and honestly loved it.

However, I'm absolutely not confident in those tbh, in terms of reliability. The whole thing is highly experimental right now, and I wouldn't trust them as a daily driver.

Phosh is also available for Fedora, especially Silverblue (available as ARM iso), since you are, with me together, probably one of the most prominent Fedora Atomic fanboy :D

I see big potential in a uBlue-phone spin maybe. I tried making one myself, but I absolutely don't have a clue what I'm doing and don't want any responsibility for such a project.
Do you know if or how we could organise such a project?

From what I've heart it isn't recommended to use an OS persistently on an USB-stick. Not is it slower, the constant read and writes may damage it, since it isn't made for that.

Please correct me if I remembered it wrong.

I would use something Fedora-based. It's just a personal choice from myself, since it's reliable and very up to date. By using a modern distro, you increase the chance your hardware will perform better.

Workstation: uses Gnome, which can utilize the great trackpad
KDE spin: as you wanted KDE
Atomic (preferably uBlue, but Silverblue or Kionite would be great too): my favourite, maybe you could test too. You can install the KDE version first, and if you dislike it, you can rebase easily to the Gnome or whatever version without reinstalling

What maybe won't work is the WiFi and some keyboard things from what I've heart, but you can test it for yourself

Ubuntu has become very controversial, that's why I've left it out. I have my reasons for that.

• Once, they decided to make advertisements for Amazon a few years ago, which they’ve reverted
• They now make ads in the terminal for “Ubuntu Pro”
• And, mostly, they force their own and highly controversial package format (Snaps) onto users. You almost can’t get around them, even if you actively decide for it.

While Snaps became better in the last years, they still bring a lot of trouble. Just, for example, think of Valve when they officially recommended everyone to use the fricking Snap package because it’s broken all the time? Good luck doing that with Ubuntu, when they shove Snaps down everyones’ throat, without even notifying the user. While we more experienced users just change the package format, newcomers aren’t aware of that and blame a malfunctioning app to Linux, not the Snap.

If more people say I should include Ubuntu too, I will do that.

I asked the same question a few months ago on a german community.

Most people advised against a SBC (RPI, ...). They're not that much more energy efficient than Mini-PCs (especially with an Intel NUC or Celeron), are more modular + repairable, and use the more common x86-architecture.

You can get an used ThinClient for less than a RPI3, not even to mention a 4. This, and that you don't contribute to more E-waste, is great.

I use a Fujitsu Esprimo Q920 with an Intel i5-4590T processor, 8 gb RAM and only SSDs.
It draws about 11W under normal load, a RPI3 draws about 5-7, including hard drives, the 4 even more with the active cooling and more performant CPU.

The RPI isn't that more energy efficient, even with the enormous german energy prices, the thin client costs only a few bucks a year.
The RPI is also more prone to break, especially the SD-card.

I'm pretty happy with my current setup, would recommend.

my daily driver for some years now is Debian, and I have a decent setup via Ansible - everything just works for me.

Then don't change anything.
Only because there's new shiny stuff every two weeks out there in the FOSS world, doesn't mean "old" stuff isn't relevant anymore.
If Debian suits you, keep it.

My question is mostly to long term Linux users, which use Linux in a professional context

I sadly can't speak for that exactly.
I don't use Linux professionally and would rather consider myself as "noob", but maybe my input has still some value for you.

What is your experience? How did your workflows change on your immutable Linux distribution? Did you try immutable and went back to a more traditional distribution - why? How long are you running the immutable distribution and what issues and perks did you run into?

I used Silverblue now for a few months.

I broke every distro out there and SB is rock solid. If I break something (which basically never happened), I can just reboot and select the image from before. It's a huge gain of peace of mind for me to know I never have to worry about the state of my system again!

My workflow changed to using containers for everything. As I said, I'm pretty much a "casual" user, so Flatpaks cover 99% of my needs. If I need some CLI program or something not available on Flathub, I use Distrobox, which gives me access to every distro and integrates perfectly.

Issues: nothing major yet. If a containered program shouldn't work, I can always install it natively per rpm-OSTree. Reboots aren't an issue too. I shut down my PC anyway, so I don't care. Updates get installed and staged in the background, and I boot into a new image everyday.
I never get forced to reboot, even less than on normal Fedora.

Usually, on a mutable system, you should offline-install and reboot your PC anyway for safety and better stability on the runtime.

The only thing that didn't work for me are VPN clients, but the integrated Gnome solution works fine for me too. Oh, and many install-scripts don't work/ aren't available for SB aswell.
Most might work, but nobody took time to write one, since they need some other approach than Debian or Fedora.

I really recommend you to check out uBlue, it's a great project and really "the future". It uses the rebase-feature, which enables users to make their own custom images, similar to Nix.
I for example use uBlue-Silverblue, which comes with some QOL-stuff pre-enabled. You can also install a SteamOS clone, images with integrated Nvidia-drivers, "unsupported" DE- and WM-spins, and so on there. With one command. And you can swap out the base anytime you want on an existing system.

Would I recommend you SB or any other immutable distro? Theoretically, 100% yes! Practically, in your case, no.

Stick with Debian if it fits you. Look into Distrobox if you want. See, if most stuff is in your home-directory, or if you prefer uncontainered stuff.
If the pros outweigh the cons for you, then install it the next time when you have to anyway (new hard drive, etc.).
But you can also wait a few years until immutable OSs get more widespread and mature.

Edit: I just looked up what Ansible is. In that case, NixOS would be fabulous! uBlue is relatively new and probably not as mature. If you like to install a system reproducible, just share the nix-config and apply it on another PC. But you have to get into it first, which might be complicted and time consuming. It still should be worth it.

That would be very very hard and unreliable.

Bazzite is more than just "preinstalled Steam", it has a list of tweaks, optimizations and additions so long you can't even finish reading it all! 😅
This includes a different kernel, pre-configured containers, and much more.
If you do that on a regular system, configuration drift would quickly destroy any good experience in no time and result in a huge mess.

uBlue provides a solid base distribution (pretty much stock Fedora) and applies exactly your way, but in upstream, and then copies that new image to millions of PCs. By doing that, you can provide many many identical copies that are the same everywhere and always up to date, without the burden of maintaining a whole distro like on Nobara.
The hard and boring work of maintaining a distro is on the shoulders of the Fedora team, and you only have to maintain your own changes.

This seems something with too big of an attack surface.

Not really.

• Most stuff is installed in containers
• The pros of image based distros still apply here in terms of reliability, security, etc.
• Its no more than a few hours away from upstream stock Fedora
• Most apps (Lutris, OBS, etc.) are optional and opt-in, if you just click "next, next, next" in the installer you'll get a relatively vanilla experience compared to stock Fedora