this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2024
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I would argue that NixOS absolutely is the OS you get if your time is worthless, but not every distro is the same. I'd argue that if you need something that doesn't have so many issues a stabler or easier to use distro (Debian, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, Linux Mint, and even Fedora or openSUSE) is going to be a better option than trying to bend specifically NixOS to do what you want.
I personally use a mix of Pop, Debian, and Fedora, not because they're particularly powerful, but because they tend to be more straightforward for what I want to do than NixOS, Gentoo, or Arch. I don't mind tinkering, but for my main machines I don't want to tinker much.
Edit: I should clarify that there are plenty of reasonable uses of Windows and I don't fault anyone for using it especially if their familiarity is keeping them from understanding Linux as well as they want to. But I also would make the case that there are a lot of distros out there.
Hard disagree. Does it require you to climb through heaps of trash documentation? Absolutely. But, if you persevere, you got yourself a rock solid system that will even make Debian Stable jealous; all while requiring no maintenance.
I'd argue Fedora Atomic does the job with even less fuss for a larger number of people. NixOS is great if you want/need to tinker, but Fedora Atomic is just giddy up and go as long as you don't require any specialized programs or drivers.
I say this as someone who currently uses NixOS on both of my computers.
I agree that Fedora Atomic, especially if you consume it through uBlue, provides (somehow) even less headache with only a fraction of the investment.
I say this as a very happy user of Fedora Atomic; who has (almost) exclusively been using Fedora Atomic on all of their systems (read: 1 laptop) for over two years.
That's why I think the previous commenter's statement rings true. I've been using Linux exclusively for over a decade across multiple distros. NixOS is not intuitive for new or seasoned users, making good documentation vital.
An example: I spent a good weekend day or so poking at NixOS. Live boot worked as expected. When I finished, I had a bootable system but no network stack, despite following the docs. This means that my only route forward would be going back to the live boot since there was no way to pull packages in that state.
I decided to go with Fedora Silverblue as my next test. After dding the image to my USB, it took about 10 mins to get up and running. I was able to setup libvirt and other similar software quick and easy. And once I'm happy, I can write my config to a repo and have my base system wherever, whenever.
I just wanted to offer some nuance to the table. After everything has been learned, enabling some (otherwise complex and obscure) features can be accomplished by a single line in your NixOS config. Like, this efficiency can not and should not be ignored.
You can find some of my thoughts on Fedora Atomic in another comment found under this post. Spoiler alert; for a lot of people, it's what they seek from NixOS but (by contrast) with excellent delivery. I won't ignore that it doesn't have some of the more insane/interesting functionalities that NixOS provides. But, some just want atomicity, reproducibility and (some) declarativity; and Fedora Atomic does deliver on those without requiring you to go into the deep and learn an entire new language that's only used for managing your distro 😅.
I really appreciate it. I really WANT to like NixOS. The level of efficiency and portability (ex. Nix as package manager) is incredible and, I think, well worth learning about both for users and distros - I hope we see the ideas propagate further. It's just not in a place that I can be happy using it. But, it is going to tickle some people the right way and that is something that makes me happy.
This right here is why I'm liking it so far. I'm like Alton Brown is to cooking gadgets when it comes to languages in computing, I really don't like unitaskers. I get unreasonably resentful of software that forces me to use a DSL (this is a "me" problem).
And you learn something thatbis it applicable to NixOS. And the time to find stuff is just insane. Oh this used to work but doesn't know cause now we don't this way. It is a compete time sync trying to robot of stuff with Nix.