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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
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I used NixOS for a couple of years. My experience is like this:
The configuration stuff seems great. I guess it reduce the struggle of porting a full config from one pc to another right ?
Yes absolutely. It is really great. It is also a source of frustration, e.g., missing configuration options, non-obvious options and so on. Overall it works well.
It's insanely stable but you have to have a lot of linux/programming knowledge to do even the simplest things like installing/updating your software or making little tweaks. I played with it for hours the other day and I'm just too dumb to figure it out lol I think it's just a super stable highly customizable distro for power users and a lot of people like that. If you can get over the learning curve it's a pretty powerful and unique os
It's kind of funny because I'd put NixOS on a complete newbies computer for sure, and recommend it to an expert... But I'm less sure if I'd tell a random mid-intermediate Linux user to switch.
Like if Grandma wants Linux on their computer to do some internet browsing for some reason... I'd absolutely put NixOS on it because it's easy to manage the system for them... But somebody who is a little familiar with Linux already might be more confused about the differences. It's kind of the ultimate beginner distro and the ultimate power-user distro, but a bit awkward between those extremes, haha.
I have been using for years on servers. My lemmy instance is hosted on it.
Although for desktop I had too many issues back in 2019 so I ended up back to Arch Linux and then EndeavourOS
Would be fun to try again to use it on desktop
NixOS is the only[1] Linux distribution that feels like it is build around Free Software. Meaning upstream Git repositories can be treated as first-class citizen and installed directly without convoluted binary packaging system (that still exists in the background, but only as cache to speed up build times). Nix also makes it very easy to upgrade, downgrade, side grade, patch, override dependencies or otherwise change packages, or even just keep multiple versions of the same software around. Something many other distributions still struggle with or make completely impossible with the distributions own tools. Even the act of installing software in Nix becomes somewhat unnecessary, as you can just run software straight from the Git repository.
And best of all, it's all based on a very simple and transparent packaging system, if you ever used GNU stow, kind of like that, it's all held together with a bunch of symlinks and some environment variables. No contains, no ostree, none of those ugly workarounds, just plain old Unix stuff that you can find and grep through as much as you like.
Simply put, NixOS puts the joy back in Linux, while other distributions like Ubuntu try to actively trash their reputation with a proprietary App store and others like Debian just stagnate around and are still stuck with the same old packing system that was state of the art 25 years ago and hasn't improve much at all since than. NixOS just provides a dramatically cleaner and simpler approach that also happens to be vastly more powerful.
Another cool thing, if you don't wanna switch distributions just yet and reinstall the full NixOS, you can just use the Nix package manager itself on whatever distribution you are already using.
[1] There is also GNU Guix, which is basically a reimplementation of Nix with Guile/Scheme
Here's the straightforward version of why I use it:
The entire state of your operating system is defined in a config file, and changes are made by changing the config file. This makes it super easy to reproduce your exact system many times and to know where all the many different configuration elements that describe your system are located.
Updates are applied atomically, so you don't have to worry about interrupting the update process and if it fails, the previous state of your system is still bootable. By default every time you change something, you get another option in the boot menu to roll back to.
Making container-like sub systems is super easy when you're familiar with nix, so you can have as many different enclaves as you like for different software versions, development environments, desktop setups, whatever without taking a performance hit. Old versions of stuff are very accessible without breaking your new stuff.
The package manager has a lot of software and accessing nonfree stuff is straightforward. Guix looks rad, but nix ended up being the more practical compromise for my usecase. I didn't want to have to package a heap of software the moment I made the switch.
It's in no way "everyone", just a vocal minority.
I use ~~Arch~~ NixOS BTW.
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?
I keep seeing trends with Linux distribution like teenager looking for new fashion.
I think it’s mostly the very young Linux user who hope from one distribution to the another over and over whereas many just stick with what they got : Ubuntu, Debian, mint, maybe fedora.
NixOS is certainly interesting tho.
I daily drive GNU Guix instead, and I would strongly recommend any emacs and/or lisp enthusiasts interested in the benefits of functional, reproducible, declarative, and hackable system management to give it a try!
everyone
Now that's what I'd call a stretch...
Indeed, why would I switch, already have been running NixOS for 10+ years.
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.
Answering that question fully would require a PHD thesis.
Perhaps you could narrow down your question a little?
It's been around for like a decade, but was recently make more approachable by offering a graphical installer.
I don't get the hype. I'm staying with Arch, as Nix seems to be mainly for developers.
NixOS has benefits not just for developers, altough being familiar with programming is helpful.
For me the main benefit of NixOS is being able to keep multiple systems in sync. For that I have 3 config files, the first containing all general config and packages I want to have installed. The other two are for my laptop and pc respectively, which allows me to make system-specific changes. E.g. tlp is only enabled and configured on my laptop.
And NixOS isn't just rolling release, it also has bi-annual stable releases, which is great for servers.
Rollbacks are also awesome, altough I used btrfs snapshots a few years back with Arch for a similar result. With a bit of setup they are bootable from grub.
I ran it in a VM for several months and was underwhelmed. Sticking with Fedora.
Because it’s the latest Cool Nerd Thing™ like Arch before it, and Gentoo before that. Most of the people raving about it probably don’t have much use for its features.
The features themselves are very useful for basically any user. Whether they are worth the non-standardness and issues that come with it is another question.
Overlays. Good package management, and lot of stability stuff.