Linux

NixOS is a fully declarative and reproducable system.

What this means is that you can create a single configuration.nix, which includes all of your applications, settings, aliases, environment variables, user account + groups, etc., and copy that over to another NixOS machine (including different architectures) and run nixos-rebuild boot to completely reproduce the system on that other machine.

The nix package manager is also really good at telling you if the configuration will break anything, where, and how, and refuses to apply until the issue is fixed.

Also every time you use nixos-rebuild, it creates a new generation of your NixOS install meaning if something ends up breaking, you can reboot into the old system.

So for example, I can theoretically have the exact same configuration across my desktop, laptop, phone, server, etc., minus the automatically generated hardware-configuration.nix, which is specific to the hardware.

Also Nix supports package overlays, which means that you can modify an existing package while the maintainer still keeps it up to date.

nah

didn't have enough time during the last half a decade to learn yet another thing

might be better fit than my current debian setup - but how would I ever know, since my current thing is good enough?

Never tried NixOS but I think I will try Qubes-Whonix next: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes

Overlays. Good package management, and lot of stability stuff.

It's been around for like a decade, but was recently make more approachable by offering a graphical installer.

I've been looking at it after numerous times I update Fedora only to have some tool break that I use daily. Then I spend a chunk of the day getting Virtualbox working again so I can do my job (write code for websites).

I haven't made the jump, but it looks very interesting.

SYMLINKS

SYMLINKS EVERYWHERE

(also 6000 packages intalled on my system for some reason lol)

People love Nix because of the OS configuration based around a single config file. Essentially, you define your system configuration in this file, including installed programs, then you rebuild your system based on that configuration.

The beauty here is that you can easily move this file to another machine running NixOS and reproduce your configuration there. You can also roll back changes by simply rebooting and choosing the last known good build and you're back in business.

I will switch as soon as I can get proprietary Nvidia drivers to work on my laptop.

I've been using it for over a year and love it. A config file for your entire system, and built in rollbacks anytime something goes wrong. One language to configure everything, although in practice that doesn't always work. But I love it.

Some others have started why it works, here is some how. Nixos completely disregards the fhs. Packages don't install to anywhere standard, every package and configuration change gets it's on directory in /nix/store but through smart use of tracking everything there, it symlinks all those files to proper places and sets up the environment for them to know where libraries are.

This is then also why you don't need sudo privileges to install things. Your profile has an environment that is aware of your users packages and configurations, the system itself isn't effected because everything is symlinked.

Then because every update means new directories in /nix/store you can role back to your last configuration because plasma broke something or whatever.

However, it's a LOT to learn. Best place I know of is https://piped.video/watch?v=AGVXJ-TIv3Y&t=0

This guy did a good job for me. Hope this helps!

I tried it about a year ago and I don't know it did not convince me. Yeah it might be great for some niche developer oriented needs or deployment but for a normal OS usage, meh. I kind of see it as a current hype, just like crypto/NFT before, and AI now. For normal everyday usage I find openSUSE Tumblweed much more suitable and much more widely applicable.