VanillaOS is an immutable distro made by the devs from Bottles.
It aims to be as user friendly and stable as possible, while giving advanced users the option to use their own package manager apx to install every software ever available for Linux.
Yes, you’re absolutely correct. The trailer is pretty generic and doesn’t tell you any of the (great) features and uniqueness of the distro.
BUT: the distro is catered towards newcomers. To normal users, who aren’t very techy.
To people who just want to play a game like Assassin’s Creed after coming home from work. Or want to watch YouTube. Or who want to edit a picture casually.
Who just use their PC like 99% of the general population.
Nobody, who isn’t a huge Linux nerd like us in our bubble, cares if a distro uses X11 or Wayland by default, or PipeWire, or dnf vs apt. Or even Snaps. Or whatever.
They just want something that is easy to use, is reliable and looks cool.
And this distro gives them exactly that.
Mint is often considered as just a “less annoying Windows replacement” for many.
And as a very young person, I find Mint’s looks pretty old fashioned and boring.
VanillaOS looks way “younger” and “hipper”, I like it!
I see the trailer less as a “Look what our distro can and what it’s USPs are” and more like a “Look how awesome Linux is and what you can still do, you don’t need Windows for your software!” and I find that a good approach!
Actually, I switched to SB just a few months ago, and I’m really really happy with it!
The main advantage for me for SB is that I can always rebase to any other official immutable spin (KDE, Sway, Budgie) or inofficial (from uBlue) variant.
In this way, I can quickly swap out everything except my “own” stuff (personal files, installed apps) super easily without reinstalling.
Theoretically, that should be possible on mutable distros too, but is really “dirty” and risky.
On SB, it is done in a few minutes with one command and without any residues.
VanillaOS offers all those other benefits (unbreakability, easy updates, etc.) too, but I wanted to keep the option to change the OS later on (rebase), which VOS doesn’t offer atm.
Even though I love Gnome dearly, offering only that is too restrictive for me.
SB gives me all those features from VOS too, with Distrobox. I can even use apx if I want.
Also, I wanted to wait until VOS becomes more mature and wait until version 2.0. (Base changed to Debian, other release cycle, etc.).
VOS doesn’t seem like a competitor to SB. More like a “future version” of what Mint could be, with the same philosophy, just executed differently with today’s new technologies.
deleted by creator
Not true at all.
VanillaOS is an immutable distro made by the devs from Bottles.
It aims to be as user friendly and stable as possible, while giving advanced users the option to use their own package manager apx to install every software ever available for Linux.
deleted by creator
Yes, you’re absolutely correct. The trailer is pretty generic and doesn’t tell you any of the (great) features and uniqueness of the distro.
BUT: the distro is catered towards newcomers. To normal users, who aren’t very techy.
To people who just want to play a game like Assassin’s Creed after coming home from work. Or want to watch YouTube. Or who want to edit a picture casually.
Who just use their PC like 99% of the general population.
Nobody, who isn’t a huge Linux nerd like us in our bubble, cares if a distro uses X11 or Wayland by default, or PipeWire, or dnf vs apt. Or even Snaps. Or whatever.
They just want something that is easy to use, is reliable and looks cool. And this distro gives them exactly that.
Mint is often considered as just a “less annoying Windows replacement” for many. And as a very young person, I find Mint’s looks pretty old fashioned and boring.
VanillaOS looks way “younger” and “hipper”, I like it!
I see the trailer less as a “Look what our distro can and what it’s USPs are” and more like a “Look how awesome Linux is and what you can still do, you don’t need Windows for your software!” and I find that a good approach!
deleted by creator
Actually, I switched to SB just a few months ago, and I’m really really happy with it!
The main advantage for me for SB is that I can always rebase to any other official immutable spin (KDE, Sway, Budgie) or inofficial (from uBlue) variant.
In this way, I can quickly swap out everything except my “own” stuff (personal files, installed apps) super easily without reinstalling.
Theoretically, that should be possible on mutable distros too, but is really “dirty” and risky. On SB, it is done in a few minutes with one command and without any residues.
VanillaOS offers all those other benefits (unbreakability, easy updates, etc.) too, but I wanted to keep the option to change the OS later on (rebase), which VOS doesn’t offer atm. Even though I love Gnome dearly, offering only that is too restrictive for me.
SB gives me all those features from VOS too, with Distrobox. I can even use apx if I want.
Also, I wanted to wait until VOS becomes more mature and wait until version 2.0. (Base changed to Debian, other release cycle, etc.).
VOS doesn’t seem like a competitor to SB. More like a “future version” of what Mint could be, with the same philosophy, just executed differently with today’s new technologies.
deleted by creator
That’s… that’s the point. Vanilla, as in no modifications.