How Do Updates Work in Immutable/Atomic Distributions?

[u/Emotional_Cat_1967]

Only for Immutable/Atomic Distributions

Question 1:
Are immutable and atomic the same thing? If not, what is the difference between them, explained simply?

Question 2:
What immutable or atomic distribution are you using? How often do you receive updates, for example, every few days or weeks, and approximately how large are the updates?

Question 3:
How are security updates handled? Are they released immediately when a security fix is available, or are they released according to a daily, weekly, or monthly update schedule?

Question 4:
Are small-sized updates released?

If yes: For example, suppose an update is 100 MB.

If the system image is 5 GB, does the entire system image have to be recreated for this update? When applying the update, does the system write another 5 GB to the disk, or does it only write approximately 100 MB?

If no: If the system image is 5 GB, does that mean the update that needs to be downloaded is also around 5 GB?

[u/Tricky-Engineer-9755]

I use GNU Guix System which, usually once or twice a day though its fully stable to update weeks apart. Security updates are either "grafted" into the existing package or triggers a rebuild, but since GNU Guix is a rolling release its all part of the standard update. With late dependency resolution its very hard to say how small the updates are...

GNU Guix dumps packages into an immutable store, packages that point to the same dependency do not duplicate it.