A review of Nix/NixOS after using it on all my machines for three years. I'll cover what works, what doesn't, and why it's the first OS that's stuck with me.
Agreed with the article. There’s lots to dislike about Nix, but even with those downsides, NixOS is still better than any OS I’ve tried. Install an update and it’s borked? No worries. New PC and you want everything set up just like your old one? Copy one file over and it’s set up for you.
Unsure about dislikes. You have any desktop spin as you want, complete freedom, immutable, a single small file governs your entire system. I daily Nix currently and I haven’t found an easier distro. I’m not super advanced and I did a full custom build, luks, tweaks, full app installs from scratch. Booted up as if I never left my old PC. Nix is the shit. Most everyone’s concerns are overblown. Most haven’t used it beyond a simple test run or few. The slight learning curve of your config syntax and that’s it. I came from mint then from windows. Newcomers you can do it too!!
Agreed with the article. There’s lots to dislike about Nix, but even with those downsides, NixOS is still better than any OS I’ve tried. Install an update and it’s borked? No worries. New PC and you want everything set up just like your old one? Copy one file over and it’s set up for you.
Unsure about dislikes. You have any desktop spin as you want, complete freedom, immutable, a single small file governs your entire system. I daily Nix currently and I haven’t found an easier distro. I’m not super advanced and I did a full custom build, luks, tweaks, full app installs from scratch. Booted up as if I never left my old PC. Nix is the shit. Most everyone’s concerns are overblown. Most haven’t used it beyond a simple test run or few. The slight learning curve of your config syntax and that’s it. I came from mint then from windows. Newcomers you can do it too!!
OpenSUSE also does this.
Install scripts? Of course the individual apps definitions still need to be set up again, but I’d imagine it’s the same for Nix?