Immutable OS is not a good choice for individual users. For servers that don't see much interactive use / don't need frequent opportunistic installs or updates / don't need various ad hoc assembled applications to share data, and value stability of the system over its usability -- it's good.
Whenever I have to deal with "immutable" distributions or attempts to do something immutable (like Snap) on otherwise less immutable systems for individual users, I always end up disabling / removing / uninstalling. It's just an awful end-user experience, if the end user is a human.
I think you mean developers?
Otherwise most popular end user OSes are immutable by default these days..
Chrome OS, Android, Steam OS. Honestly it makes sense that we draw a line between platform and applications, and not let application updates/installs break platform.
Imagine your non technical family members install some application that pulls in 100 dependencies one of which breaks the next Ubuntu upgrade..
Yeah, I guess, I'm falling behind the times. I've never used, nor have I ever met anyone using Chrome OS or Steam OS. What are they for?
I hate Android with a burning passion. I pray for a different OS for mobile phones that's actually not as user-hostile as Android (well, MacOS is even more user-hostile... so that's not going to work). I don't think most Android users use it because the like it. There's not much of a choice there.
> Imagine your non technical family members install some application that pulls in 100 dependencies one of which breaks the next Ubuntu upgrade..
I have non-technical family members who use Ubuntu. They had some old laptop that couldn't run Windows anymore, and so Ubuntu was an easy solution to that problem.
So, here's their situation:
1. They don't update anything. There's really no reason to. What they have there works fine. It will break, eventually because of the drive to change and discontinue things unnecessarily, but it will take years. It's unlikely that the laptop will survive that long. And even if it does, they'll just ask me to fix whatever their problem is.
2. Guess how I know about Snap!? Hehe. So, apparently, Ubuntu for desktop comes with this... "feature". And of all things they decided to install Firefox as a Snap package. And of course it's broken. And of course there's no easy way to fix it, while retaining Snap. The easiest and most reliable way to deal with it is to get rid of Snap altogether, and to install from Mozilla's PPA. Precisely because of the difficulties with upgrades.
So, yeah, theoretically non-technical users might run into the situation you describe. But you kind of forgetting that upgrade-induced problems is more of a Microsoft thing, where they force upgrades on their users and eventually break things. It's the Microsoft world where users constantly have to deal with broken updates. If you are a Linux user, you might just live happily with whatever you've installed 5+ years ago and just enjoy your life.
Whenever I have to deal with "immutable" distributions or attempts to do something immutable (like Snap) on otherwise less immutable systems for individual users, I always end up disabling / removing / uninstalling. It's just an awful end-user experience, if the end user is a human.