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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).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Arch or NixOS? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've been here a week ago already asking if Arch would be fine for a laptop used for university, as stability is a notable factor in that and I'm already using EndeavourOS at home, but now I'm curious about something else too - what about Arch vs NixOS?

I heard that NixOS is pretty solid, as due to the one file for your entire system format you can both copy and restore your system easily whenever, apart from your normal files and application configurations of course.

Are there any major downsides to NixOS compared to Arch apart from the Arch Wiki being a bit less relevant? I'd also lose access to the AUR, but admittedly I don't think I've ever actually needed it for anything, it's just nice to have. Also, since NixOS has both rolling release and static release and you can mix and match if you wanna get packages from unstable or not, I'm not losing Arch's bleeding edge, which is nice.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I used to like the idea of nixos because it felt "tidy" to configure everything centrally. However that tidyness is achieved by adding an extra layer which just replicates the configuration options of every program. If there is a bug in that layer or something is just not implemented, either you have to learn the whole inernals of nixos and nixpkgs, for which there is no real documentation, or you have to resort to doing things imperatively again, which is hard because of the opacity of the generated system and also defeats the whole purpose. So basically, you are completely dependent on nixos developers for things you could have easily done yourself on arch.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

I have to disagree with this, with home-manager you can pretty much put just put your normal config files inside your NixOS config and map them into wherever they're meant to go, except now they're managed by nix

The built in config options are really nice but you don't have to use them in the slightest as long as the package itsself is in nixpkgs