 People who have been using Linux for a long time have an aversion to change. It's a fact that can't be denied now Obviously, it's not universal. There are many people who have used links for a long time who don't mind that Linux is changing but a lot of people that I talked to have been using Linux for 10 20 30 years are Very averse to the idea of change now I have only been using Linux since 2017 and even I have fallen into this trap of not really liking the way that Linux is going in some aspects and mostly I'm talking about Wayland when I'm talking about my version to change I don't want to see XOR die because I like my window managers the way they are and I don't want anybody to touch them Please don't touch them. Let me use what I want to use It's okay. I'm calm. I won't Talk about Wayland in this video anymore anyways The point is is that the longer you've been using Linux the more likely it is that you've kind of gotten set in your ways And you've become accustomed to a certain way of doing things now I came across this video from Nick at the Linux experiment He in this video talks about the future of Linux and the past and all the packaging format messes and stuff like that I'll link to this in the video description. You should definitely go check it out But his point was basically that the future is going to be Flatpak snaps and app images now We're gonna completely ignore app images because I don't think that they'll play much of a role in the future It's going to be snaps. It's going to be flat packs I think mostly it's going to be flat packs and I've talked about that before in the channel But I think that there was a spot in next video that he kind of missed and that's because there's another aspect beyond just the Containerization of our apps that's going to kind of go along with this whole transition period that we're in and that is immutable distributions now I have Waffled on immutable distros over the course of the last year and I'm still at the point where I And I'm not quite sure because it's a big Big change for a lot of people now I have made a video talking about what an immutable distribution is I'll try to link to that in the video description and in one of the cards up here and I have made many videos about specific immutable distros and How I have mixed feeling towards those because of the way that they work But when you talk about the containerization of applications when you talk about flat packs and you talk about snaps You really do have to talk about Immutability because that is also a future that is coming for us whether we like it or not now It doesn't mean that the traditional distro Paradigm is going to go away arch Linux probably will never be immutable as it is now Somebody else will probably take arch Linux and make it immutable in fact It's already happened with steam OS, but from the arch developers I'd be very surprised if we ever see an immutable distribution I mean, it's possible, but it's it'd be very far away and I doubt it But there are other distributions that wouldn't surprise me if they go immutable completely things like fedora Eventually I have a feeling that we will no longer see a non immutable version of fedora We'll just see silver blue. That's will be fedora in the future Same thing with open suzer it wouldn't surprise me and in fact I think that they're talking about this if they haven't even already decided is the open suzer leap will probably become an immutable distro And that will just be what it is I have a feeling that that's the way that it's going and I think I've heard something about that same thing with a Buntu and surprised me that in the future and maybe 10 years from now Maybe 15 years from now that regular standard of Buntu is no longer the Buntu We know today, but is instead an immutable distro We've heard rumblings about a snap only Ubuntu. They've even have an ISO that you can try I'll make a video about that someday and It's going to happen whether we like it or not now how fast that future comes to us I don't know. I think it's gonna happen within the next 10 years But I think that the more corporate distributions are definitely going to be focusing more on the mutable aspect of Linux Then probably ever before and it's going to continue to be a focus for them more and more as the years progress simply because It offers so many advantages not only to them as developers, but also theoretically at least to users It allows them to package a distribution and Distribute it and know that the base there is going to be completely universal across everybody who has downloaded that version of That particular distribution it also Solves the problem that Nick was talking about in his video because traditionally when we have packages on Linux and he talks about this again in his video Where? Arch Linux is packaging all the applications for arch Linux and the Debian guys are packaging all the packages for Debian and Ubuntu does stuff on top of that and uses some of the Debian stuff and you know We had we have the solos guys. They're doing their own stuff and you got the open Suza guys They're doing their own stuff and all these distributions They all package their own distribution or they all package their own packages for their distribution as very little input really for the most Part on developers themselves because the developers just put the code out there and then the distro maintainers Take that code package it for their particular distro. We've talked about fragmentation on Linux Tell we're blue in the face over the course of the last how many every years probably third years We talked about Linux fragmentation and one of the biggest areas of fragmentation has always been the number of package managers and package Distribution systems that are available Linux wide, you know, we have Pac-Man. We have app. We have zipper. We have DNF You know, you name it There's about 20 or 30 different package managers if not even more and they all do things in a different way They're none of them are inter compatible So you can't take Pac-Man and put it on into at least not easily and you if you do do it It's not all that it's not meant to do that, right? It's not meant to go on a different distribution It's meant for arts, right? And just like you want to take zipper and put it on, you know, a boon too I mean theoretically, I suppose you probably could if you put enough work into it But why would you want to right because apt is there? So you get the idea, right? The past that Nick is talking about and other people have talked about is that there are all these packages that are separate and the future is going to be a snap a flat pack an app image, you know In the in the background that nobody hardly anybody uses, you know And you just have these two major formats that you choose from and those are going to be mostly controlled not by the Distro but by the developer, which is a complete change from the way it's been, you know always the reason why immutability makes so much sense is because the primary Distribution for packages in an immutable distribution is going to be either snaps or flat packs They've changed the location of where you're going to pull your your packages from in those distributions to make it default to Those containerized packages now that doesn't mean that you can't go download something that is not a flat pack on Silver blue you can still do that But it's harder first of all because you're not supposed to it's not the primary means of getting your packages But also it doesn't it's not as well supported as flat packs are so you can't just go download it in the news The application you download it then you have to reboot and and actually restart your computer in order to actually use the thing that you installed Now obviously there's going to be some packages that aren't going to fit so well into this future of containerized Applications as others so things like window managers are going to have a much harder time When it comes to this packaging system mostly because they can't be containerized all that well They are reliant on other Libraries and stuff like that and there are they're reliant on interaction with basically Everything that is displayed on the screen. There are other examples of things that are going to have the same problems and it's going to require a very robust permission system in order to get those things to work and All there are more technical problems out on top of that that's through there's a reason why a lot of the if you're going to have a Window manager on an immutable system It has to be put on the ISO before Installation before the ISO is compiled and that is the place where you kind of put the programs that don't do so Well in the containerized environment so the future is going to be containers just like Nick says But it's also going to be immutable now I don't think that the traditional distro paradigm of distributions being non Immutable is going to go away anytime soon if ever there's always going to be some distributions I think arch is going to be one of the many arch distributions are going to be Very not very anti immutable if you will and it's just going to be the main Distributions the big ones like Ubuntu and Fedora and open Suza and probably Debian eventually Debian will take a little bit longer than the rest of them to do it but I think that eventually the big ones are going to go immutable only and slowly The regular versions of those will die off and it all goes hand-in-hand With this idea of not only making your the computers more skewer make them easier to distribute but the biggest benefit here is Going to be ease of development the ability to develop one single ISO To develop one single package or maybe three in this case you know you're going to develop a snap and you're going to develop a flat pack or whatever and Those are going to be the things that are distributed instead of hundreds of packages a distribution or distro that is much more open and Hackable if you will you know that's just that future is not something that the more corporatized Distros are really all that interested in it's not it the immutable aspect of it makes it much easier for them to Develop and I think that that is a big deal for them now Whether or not you like that idea or not is going to be mostly up to you I don't think you have to worry about this future coming anytime soon I don't think it's not going to happen. You know this year or next year or whatever But slowly over the next few years. We're going to see more and more immutable distributions We're going to start to see the process of these immutable distributions, you know become more popular and the The usage of them become more popular and I think it's going to be just something that we're going to have to learn to Adapt to and that kind of takes me back to the beginning of the video the people who are have or the people who have been in The Linux community for a very long time who are very averse to change are going to have the hardest time with this future That has been kind of brought before us now I think that even the people who have been around for a long time will adapt or they'll just find distributions That don't follow that future at all, but it's going to be a process for a lot of us now for me personally My biggest hurdle is not going to be the immutable aspect of the future Linux distribution that I use It's going to be Wayland. I guess I said I wasn't going to talk about Wayland anymore But Wayland is another transition that just it is actually going to be here much sooner than Immutable distros are for sure because it's technically already here like every desktop environment is Wayland by default nowadays and I'm just not there yet. I'm not ready yet And I every time someone says hey, have you switched to Wayland yet? I'm just like no and I probably won't Probably won't until I absolutely Absolutely have to so I have my own problems when it comes to change and we'll see how that goes so if you have thoughts on this whole future of Linux in terms of the future of being of containers and The ability to use things like distro box and stuff to do package management as well You know the idea that just everything is going to be containerized On user space and then there's going to be a containerized version of your Linux distro underneath it You're not going to be touching all that much and they're going to kind of Interact in weird ways if you have thoughts on that stuff leave them in the comment section below I'd love to hear from you if you haven't already leave a like on this video I'd really appreciate it really does help the channel You can follow me on mastodon or odyssey those links will be in the video description You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the Linux cast I really said weekly patreon only a podcast if you're interested that's available to all levels of patrons on Patreon and on YouTube if you want to support me on either those platforms that exclusive podcast is in both places Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon on YouTube you guys are all absolutely amazing without you the channel Just would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you so very very much for your support I truly do appreciate you guys are awesome. Thank you so very very much. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time You