I think you’re correct, it’s just that the people who are working on immutable distros—like Fedora—have strict policies about open-source software, and snap as a proprietary distribution method can never be officially supported as a result. To be fair, your question about why distros don’t support the /snap folder/filesystem is just as valid as wondering why snap doesn’t change itself to support immutable distros like Silverblue. The work could be put in on either end and neither one seems to want to do it, so here we are.
It’s obviously possible to use snap on an immutable OS because Ubuntu Core exists. When Canonical finally releases a desktop version of Ubuntu Core, they’re actually going to do the opposite and not support Flatpaks, so there’s a political component to this too for whatever reason.
At this current time our plans are to drop aarch64 support for Aeon due to flatpaks like Firefox not existing and there being a general lack of hardware suitable for bare metal installs
When I finally get around to publishing aeon only install media it will likely be x86_64 only
Which is both sad and weird, because
There’s nothing I haven’t found yet in Flathub for aarch64
Apparently installing FF via flatpak lessens its sandboxing, so it’s not even desirable
Installed on my laptop yesterday, having migrated my /home directory from RC2. Everything is working, except for updates, because it is currently pending Factory approval (once approved, updates will work)!
@jonah when RC3 is accepted, will it be added to the Desktop/PC recommendations, seeing as it meets all criteria?
I’m not Jonah and can’t speak for PG, I think Aeon has promise and is interesting, but RC3 being labelled RC3 (Release Candidate 3) and not as Stable is a deliberate choice by the lead developer.
RC3 introduces some big and important changes (RC2 to RC3 will need a reinstall I believe), and having RC3 be a release candidate instead of a stable release, gives time to find flaws, test, refine/revise, check for unintended consequences etc, and make changes as needed, before the official release.
This designation is the choice of he developer, not some external formal process, so if the developer felt it ready to be generally recommended and considered ready for primetime he would’ve labelled it as such. My recollection is RC3 or a possible RC4 is expected be the last release candidate before the first stable release if nothing comes up.
TL;DRIn my opinion it is prudent to hold off on a recommendation, at least until an official stable release . Aeon is still evolving, changing, design decisions are still being made and changed or revised, and as important as anything else, documentation is still pretty sparse. Aeon is ready for testers, early adopters, and the curious, but (imo) not ready for general recommendation.
“As RC3 is now ‘Feature Complete’ it is expected to be the last RC that will require a reinstallation.
Users who install RC3 can expect to be automatically upgraded to any future RC versions and the official Aeon Release automatically…
with only regular improvements expected as upstream versions develop and our community contribute additional features and packages.”
As per Richard Brown, the lead dev on Aeon. @jonah ready for addition to PG now?
[Redditor]: I assume OpenQA testing is designed to catch bugs, improve reliability and possibly security. And that that should be a pre-requisite to an official release. Is my impression more or less correct?
[Aeon’s Lead Dev]: That is correct. openQA will provide a safety net to make sure Aeon keeps working as well as it is right now. And that subtle but important difference is importantly for people expecting a “Release quality” product
[Redditor] Would you recommend Aeon to a conservative and security focused audience today (RC3), or recommend this group of users hold off until after Aeon’s official release?
I interpret RC as implying Aeon is usable, close to ready, and ready for testers and early adopters, but not yet the full general public, is that more or less what you mean to imply with the RC tag?
[Aeon’s Lead Dev]: That would be a perfect summary of the current status, yes
[late edit] I’d recommend it to anyone, security and conservative users included, now as long as they’re comfortable with maybe needing the odd extra rollback until we’ve got Aeons testing to meet our expectations
I’m enthusiastic about Aeon (have been for over a year), but I reallycan’t understand the urgency here. What urgency justifies PG officially recommending a pre-release distro, particularly considering that Aeon’s lead developer is also not officially recommending it to a general audience yet.
Meanwhile Kalpa seems to be standing still in “alpha”
Aeon is such a great concept for a distro, but I can’t bring myself to use that awful, horrible desktop (the one formerly known as GNU Network Object Model Environment)
You just answered your own question: it is ready, and meets all PG criteria for inclusion. Personally, it’s the best distro I’ve ever used, so obviously I would like others to have a similar experience as soon as possible!
It feels to me like you are repeatedly cherrypicking and quoting only the specific parts of statements that support what you want and excluding everything else. It makes it frustrating to try to discuss.
I added Richard’s late edit, for the sake of giving the full picture, and because it is useful information, knowing full well you would probably fixate on just that one line and ignore everything else he said in his comment. But I did it anyway, because quoting only the part that supports my perspective would be disingenous and unconstructive. I wish that you would try to do the same.
Richard Brown’s willingness to personally but not officially recommend Aeon to users so long as long as they don’t mind things breaking and rolling back occasionally, and don’t care about waiting for testing/QA is part of the whole of what he said. But so is everything else he said in that comment, including that:
Aeon is usable, close to ready, and ready for testers and early adopters, but not yet the full general public
[Aeon Lead Dev]: That would be a perfect summary of the current status, yes
You still haven’t explained the sense of urgency (meeting PG’s minimum criteria isn’t enough, dozens of Linux distros meet the criteria) why the immediacy?
Why take the risk of officially recommending pre-release software now rather than just being patient for a some weeks or months. Giving some time for testers and early adopters to test the substantial changes that just landed today, for docs to catch up and improve, and for Richard to decide Aeon is ready for an official release. As he often says, ‘Aeon will be ready when its ready.’
