The .config folders have important files, like git config. With that being the exception, most of my config files are empty. I have the most Vanilla GNOME setup. My setup is so vanilla, it is also missing the contrast hi-color logos, which is added by default in Fedora in multiple applications, like Firefox or Inkscape.
The system (the os files to be precise) is only mutable by package manager for specific tasks like updating. It can break certain workflows if the user wants to change system files, because they can’t.
Bonuses from that are security and reproducibility. You can be sure that whatever package you have will look and behave exactly the same as on another device with the same OS. Malware won’t be able to mess around with your OS so trivially as it does on mutable distros.
Immutable, adjective: Unchanging over time or unable to be changed.
From the article: “We want a reliable desktop experience that runs everything, but we’re too lazy to maintain anything. So we automated the entire delivery pipeline in GitHub.”
So, in other words… “Please don’t ever update your system or everything will break”
It means the core OS is isolated from all the functionality in a way that allows you to modularly add all the functionality on top of it in a reproducible, robust way.
In theory. I haven't actually dug into any of them personally.
The base OS is a known unchanging set of bits. Squirt this datastream onto a storage volume and boot to it and you have a known-working system. Then you can futz around with all the self-contained packaged apps you want, and no worries about weird interactions fucking over your whole system.
The list is generally correct but these days, systemd has made quite an impact also. If a distribution uses systemd, it has one software to handle everything from booting (instead of grub), handling start and status of all system services etc. Its probably the largest change to the Linux ecosystem in a long time.
X11 and Wayland are desktop protocols, so things like desktop environments and window managers depends on one or them to be installed. Without them, you don’t get any graphics except for the console. It’s all built on top of one of those.
Installing Arch for the first time taught me a lot about how my system works, since you have to choose all the parts that make up your system yourself.
Once an admin I know forgot to install a text editor. Imagine the fun editing files with cat, grep, awk etc., now imagine you have to use it to browse the web.
init system, without which you’d be left with only one program running at a time
some programs are written in interpreted language (e.g python, shell, perl), so the interpreter would also be required
C library, without which none of the above would function (yes, even if all the programs are statically compiled, it still has that library included with each executable)
this one is not necessary for the runtime, but is needed for creating a working system: toolchain – preprocessor, compiler, linker, assembler – all the stuff for transforming the source code into executables
Another comment mentioned Linux From Scratch, I’d totally recommend that, but it would take so much of your time manually building stuff (which is why it is so educational). If you don’t have the time, you may want to opt with Gentoo instead.
The multi-user system, which is a bunch of config files, libraries, utils and UIs, that deal with logging in or doing stuff as a specific user.
The logging system. Individual applications can simply log to a different file each but for system services the logging is usually centralized and offers additional features (like logging remotely etc.)
Setting up networking is pretty much mandatory these days.
ok >w< I understand that and you are free to customise that a lot if you want to, it’s ok!! But I personally want to keep the brand and colors of the vanilla distro!!! It’s a cuter and more honest experience c:
I’m very confused about what OP considers customization. My only experience has been setting up my home server so far, so maybe I’ll be compelled to do more “customizing” when I make the switch on my PCs.
Does installing a GUI on Ubuntu Server already break that rule? Or is it a success because it’s only software? It’s definitely not “out of the box”.
Debian, I use one Gnome extension but could easily do without it. All the defaults are fine if you just want to sit down and browse, edit media, create documents or write code.
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