Lately, I haven't really been in the gaming mood. I'll get on my computer to watch some Anime and YouTube videos, maybe write a blog post, and if I do launch a game, it is only to play Riichi City for Mahjong. It has honestly been a few weeks since I have played any game other than Mahjong on my computer.

Because of this gaming drought I have been having, I decided to switch distro's yet again, and this time, try an Immutable OS.

My Previous Experience with Immutable Linux Distro's

For a long while, I utilized the VMWare Horizon Client to access my work VM. This required that I installed the Horizon Client on my Distro of choice. With this requirement, I have not been able to get a deep dive into Immutable Linux Distro's. Each time I installed one, such as Fedora Silverblue, Kionite, or OpenSUSE MicroOS, I always ended up moving back to the non-immutable variations of the Linux distribution. This is because VMWare Horizon Client does not have an official Flatpak, and relies on (at that time), a script to install the application.

Running this script and getting Horizon Client installed successfully on an Immutable Distro always ended with failure.

But, lately, I have switched back to using my Work laptop, and no longer need to use Horizon Client on my personal laptop. Thus, I decided to give it a try again, and I went ahead and downloaded and installed OpenSUSE Aeon (MicroOS).

Using Aeon for a Few Days

Using Aeon has been rather straightforward. Once it was installed, I had to go through some additional steps of installing the NVIDIA drivers and asusctl/supergfxctl drivers for my laptop, but once that was completed, running Aeon has been smooth sailing.

One of my most favorite aspects of Aeon is the fact that it automatically updates. I almost never have to worry about manually doing any upgrades. Turning on my computer, I just know that it will be using the latest working snapshot, and everything should just work.

Honestly, it has been even more smooth sailing on Aeon than it was on Tumbleweed. Using Tumbleweed, I had some issue getting my printer working with my laptop. However, on Aeon, I just put in the IP of the printer, and bam, it is connected.

If there is anything that I could complain about with Aeon, it would be the fact that Steam flatpak is still a little glitchy. But, since I haven't really been playing anything other than Riichi City, this hasn't been a major issue.

Why Immutable and Why Aeon?

I know I have mentioned it in my previous blog posts, but I am really considering making the switch to Apple when I need to purchase a new computer.

I am looking into switching to being a console gamer come next generation of consoles, and with that, I do not see the need to have a gaming PC/Laptop. I just want to be able to use things that I know will work. If I want to game, I just want to be able to sit down at a device, turn it on, and play the games I want to play.

Lately, PC gaming hasn't been that. Even if I were to leave Linux and move back to Windows, the gaming industry have been releasing a lot of un-optimized garbage lately for games. Games run terrible under Windows, and this makes these games run worse under Linux.

At least, with a console, I know that the game will run exactly how reviewers are saying the game will run. If it doesn't run well, then I know to avoid that game. But, if I stay a PC gamer, then I may spend hours optimizing games to try and get them to run.

And honestly, I am starting to get sick of that.

PC Gaming was fun as hell 5-10 years ago. Lately, PC Gaming is becoming more of a chore. I honestly envy my friends who have a PS5, and they are able to just play the games they want to play, without having to worry about whether or not their NVIDIA card will work with the latest game, or ensuring they have the latest driver updates, otherwise a game will stutter.

This brings me to why I decided to pick an Immutable Distro, more specifically, Aeon. As much as I like KDE, with my considerations of switching to MacOS, I want to choose a desktop environment that is as similar to Mac as possible. I feel that desktop environment is Gnome, which is what Aeon ships with.

Gnome, although somewhat controversial in the Linux world, is a Desktop Environment that almost always just works. Everything follows a certain standardization, and the developers are focused on creating something that they think is good. Much like how MacOS is.

Yes, Gnome may not be amazing, but it just feels polished. When I turn on my computer, I know things will just work. In fact, I try to install as few extensions as possible to ensure that my computer just works when I turn it on.

Ultimately, I am just making my computer act as similar as I can to MacOS, without actually being on MacOS. Hoping that once I do decide to make the switch over to the Apple ecosystem, the adoption period is a lot shorter.

Why not stick with Linux and Gnome then?

I love Linux. That will never change. But, Desktop Linux is not perfect. Sometimes, things just stop working for no reason. The Linux community can become extremely divided, and thus new feature adoption ends up taking forever (just look at x11 and Wayland). Linux is great. But, when I want to sit at my computer, and just get things done, Windows and MacOS are almost always the better choice.

I am also looking into learning Video and/or Photo editing. The unfortunate truth is that Windows and MacOS are still superior to Linux when it comes to these types of workloads.

When I make the switch to MacOS, I know there will be some pain points that I am probably not going to like. But, at least I know that when I want to be able to do something, I will be able to do it without a slight worry that something may decide to break randomly and require potential hours of troubleshooting.