{"id":13250,"date":"2026-01-13T01:02:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T06:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=13250"},"modified":"2026-01-06T09:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T14:33:07","slug":"tinkering-with-immutable-linux-how-fedora-cosmic-atomic-won-me-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=13250","title":{"rendered":"Tinkering with Immutable Linux: How Fedora Cosmic Atomic Won Me Over"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n 2 <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n

I have been doing a lot of reading and listening to YouTube videos about immutable distributions and why they might offer the most flexibility for developers and tinkerers like me. I have been experimenting with Fedora Silverblue,<\/a> NixOS<\/a>, and traditional distributions like Linux Mint, Ubuntu 24.04, and Fedora 43. I was looking for ways to use ten-year-old Dell All-in-one desktops in the local public library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After my experimentation, I decided to stick with Fedora\u00a0Cosmic Atomic<\/a>\u00a0because I really love the Cosmic desktop. In the past week, I\u2019ve become more familiar with an immutable desktop and how it might fit into my workflow. One of the difficulties I have had is connecting my Brother MFC-L3780 laser printer to this new environment. Traditional Fedora and Linux Mint were easy for me to connect to and use for the occasional printing that I needed. But what about this new environment? I did some reading and research and went to the Brother website, where I downloaded the drivers and other necessary files. Study and reading informed me that I needed to download the\u00a0driver install tool\u00a0<\/a>and the\u00a0Linux<\/a>\u00a0printer driver. These are RPM files. I saved them in my\u00a0Downloads<\/strong>\u00a0folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The download was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

$ linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.6-0<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
That file has to be executed to open the file containing the necessary RPM<\/strong> files. I had to change it to an executable file first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ chmod +x linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.6-0

Then execute the file:

$ sudo .\/linux-brprinter-installer-2.2.6-0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The resulting RPM files are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
mfcl3780cdwpdrv-3.5.1-1.i386.rpm
brscan5-1.3.10-5.x86_64.rpm
brscan-skey-0.3.2-0.x86_64.rpm<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each of these is installed with rpm-ostree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
rpm-ostree mfcl3780cdwpdrv-3.5.1-1.i386.rpm
rpm-ostree brscan5-1.3.10-5.x86_64.rpm
rpm-ostree brscan-skey-0.3.2-0.x86_64.rpm<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$ rpm-ostree mfcl3780cdwpdrv-3.5.1-1.i386.rpm<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
We are now ready to install the printer using CUPS after the software was installed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
http://localhost:631<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\"CUPS
Screen picture by Don Watkins CC-by-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Getting my Brother MFC\u2011L3780 printer working was the final test. While it required a bit more manual effort than on traditional distributions, the process was straightforward once I understood how rpm\u2011ostree fits into the picture. With the correct drivers installed and CUPS configured, everything now works seamlessly. It\u2019s reassuring to know that even in an immutable environment, I can still rely on the tools and hardware I need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I continue exploring what Cosmic Atomic can do, I\u2019m feeling more confident that this setup strikes the right balance between stability, experimentation, and day\u2011to\u2011day practicality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
2 I have been doing a lot of reading and listening to YouTube videos about immutable distributions and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":13255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[913,914,71,907,5,916],"tags":[896,917,915],"class_list":["post-13250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atomic","category-cosmic","category-fedora","category-immutable-linux","category-linux","category-printing","tag-cosmic-desktop","tag-cups","tag-immutable-linux"],"modified_by":"David Both","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13250"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13254,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13250\/revisions\/13254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}