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Immutable distros and dot files / config files
(lemmy.world)
I'm using Fedora Kinoite since a while, and I really like it. There's just one thing I don't understand, and have a hard time finding an answer to.
What happens in my home directory if I rebase to Silverblue? Like, Gnome and its apps comes with a lot of config files. If I then roll back to Kinoite, will all those files and folders still be there? How can I prevent this cluttering of files and folders that I don't want to keep? I guess the easy answer would be to create a new user and then delete that home directory after rolling back, but I'm wondering if something else will happen. Thank you!
This is the main reason I don't generally rebase on anything except versions I intend to stay on if things work well. Yes, you'll keep your files and folders, but the updated software will write to them, and those will stay there too.
For example, new versions of Firefox might make modifications to your profile directory that might not work in earlier versions of Firefox. So if your rebase gives you a newer version, than reverting will break your Firefox profile.
(Now with Firefox specifically this isn't usually a problem, since even older OS releases will have the latest Firefox versions, and Firefox itself is pretty stable too, but the concept could also apply to other software.)
Leveraging flatpaks, as per the recommended workflow, largely negates these issues as well. Userspace apps shouldn't be impacted by the host OS changes in such cases.
It does, for the apps that are Flatpaks. But e.g. most of GNOME, and Firefox, are part of the immutable image at least for Fedora Silverblue.
I admit I typically hide the RPM Firefox and stick to the flatpak version. Aside from Nautilus though, in my experience most of the core GNOME user apps are provided via flatpak under Silverblue, including things like GNOME Calendar, Text Editor, Contacts, Totem, Evince, EoG, etc.
True; I'm mostly thinking about foundational pieces like GNOME Shell and settings, which could still wreak quite a bit of havoc. I don't actually know how often those introduce such breaking changes, but I'd rather not risk it.
Very important point.
This is also why you should not use toolbox but distrobox, and use a different home directory than your own.
Otherwise different OS versions etc. will give you dotfile conflicts like hell.