 Visitor Reviews |
NixOS
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Reader supplied reviews for NixOS
Average rating
9.1 from 72 review(s)
Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-09-11
Votes: 6
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This system is not like other distributions. But talk about its complexity is greatly exaggerated. There is a lot of information on the Internet about how to install and remove packages, how to configure gpu, how to start and stop services via configuration.nix. Of course, I would like all this information to be collected in a wiki. But if information on solving a problem cannot be found on the Internet, friendly discourse.nixos.org forum users come to the rescue. As for me, the system just works now.
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Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-07-24
Votes: 20
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full excelente. excellent project, iexcellent project, it is worth supporting it, its declarative form seems to me an excellent idea of control for the system, its very updated packages, I have been using NixOS for several months and I am very satisfied, and although I am not a programmer, I know it has a learning curve but still, it gives me the ease of building the operating system to my liking, only with what I need it without unnecessary processes and without so much wear and tear and very functional,,, in addition to the ease and variety of choosing and modifying the different environments, I think it is important to support projects like these,
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Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-06-21
Votes: 23
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NixOS is different from other Linux distros to a degree that other Linux distros usually aren't, but if you're a believer in the philosophy it's really next level. I don't ever see myself changing distros again unless something comes along with a better take on that same philosophy (there's always room for improvement!)
A lot of discussion about NixOS talks about it from the perspective of a sysadmin - here are some thoughts as a desktop user.
Pros:
- "Declarative" means you can organize and version your system in git. Although you can do this to some degree with dotfiles and setup scripts for other distros, the declarative way can't be beat in terms of being able to organize your stuff.
- "Reproducible" means everything just works. You run into essentially no problems when you're working with the standard stuff in nixpkgs. People like to emphasize how "reproducible" also means "rollback", but ironically it's hard to get yourself in a situation where you need to rollback.
- "Declarative" and "reproducible" together means that you can experiment with other people's config and take what you like. This gives you an incredible third support option compared to documentation and asking the community: just search GitHub.
Cons:
- You have to learn and internalize Nix to be effective. It is a lot to grok and I think that this can be harder than it needs to be since some aspects of configuring Nix could be done in a more intuitive way.
- Docs are bad. I actually don't think this is as bad of a thing as some people make it out to be, but it's true. Once you learn Nix, you just read the nixpkgs code for the Nix side of things and reference ArchWiki for the Linux side of things.
- Lack of FHS means sometimes you have to put in extra work to "Nixify" a program where running it would be trivial on other distros. This is mitigated to a large degree due to how comprehensive nixpkgs is.
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Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-06-17
Votes: 21
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Game changer:
-Zero issues
-Ultra fast
-Centralized configuration
-Easy Snapshots Management
-Not even using BTRFS but ext4 and still works with Snapshots
-Stable release is enough bleeding edge (Gnome 46.2 & Plasma 6 with the current release)
-No manual interventions required
-No breakage
-A distribution ahead of it's time: seriously
-Documentation is good enough for me
-Pure genius concept
-Once you go NixOS you never go back
-Hidden gem among all the distributions out there
-I would highly recommend
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Version: 24.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2024-06-14
Votes: 5
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NixOS Review: A Game Changer for Ethical Hacking and Beyond
Ever since I embarked on my Linux journey, I found myself constantly switching between different distributions. This habit of "distro-hopping" often led to frustration as I struggled to find a system that could meet my specific needs as an ethical hacking student. My primary challenge was installing and running various cybersecurity tools; on other distributions, there was always something wrong. Either a part of the tool would not work, or the tool itself would be completely unusable.
However, my experience with NixOS has been nothing short of transformative. NixOS offers a unique and highly effective approach to package management and system configuration, making it incredibly easy to install and maintain cybersecurity tools. Everything just works seamlessly, which is a stark contrast to my previous experiences with other Linux distributions.
Initially, I was hesitant to dive into NixOS due to its perceived complexity. The documentation on nix.org is severely lacking and can be quite challenging to understand for newcomers. If it weren’t for the insightful tutorials by the YouTuber VimJoyer, I most likely would not have made the switch. Thanks to his guidance, I was able to navigate the intricacies of NixOS and unlock its full potential.
NixOS’s stability is vastly superior to any other distro I have used. This reliability is critical for my work in ethical hacking, where a stable environment is essential for running various tools and simulations. Moreover, NixOS is not only excellent for hacking but also for gaming. The flake feature is particularly noteworthy, allowing me to set up different environments or replicate the same setup across multiple machines effortlessly. If I ever mess up, I can simply boot into a previous build, ensuring that my work remains uninterrupted.
One of the standout features of NixOS is its reproducibility. The ability to define the system configuration declaratively means that I can easily recreate my setup on different machines or roll back to a previous state if needed. This feature is a lifesaver, especially in a field where consistency and reliability are paramount.
Despite its many strengths, NixOS does have its drawbacks. The documentation is in desperate need of an overhaul. While the community is incredibly helpful, the official documentation can be a significant barrier for new users. Improving the clarity and comprehensiveness of the documentation would make NixOS more accessible to a broader audience.
In conclusion, NixOS has proven to be an invaluable asset in my journey as an ethical hacking student. Its stability, reproducibility, and ease of use for installing cybersecurity tools have made it my go-to Linux distribution. While the documentation leaves much to be desired, the support from the community and resources like VimJoyer’s tutorials make it possible to overcome this hurdle. I don't see myself switching distros any time soon, as NixOS perfectly meets my needs both for hacking and gaming.
TLDR:
8/10,
PROS : an amazing distro that offers the user stability and reproducibility,
CONS : documentation needs a lot of work
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Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-06-11
Votes: 4
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Between NixOS 11.23 and 5.24, I am genuinely thrilled. This Linux distribution upholds the entire Linux legacy: it is free software that manages to be both highly configurable and incredibly user-friendly. Among its many notable features is "stability," which I characterize as "solid as a rock" in the best Debian or FreeBSD sense, highly adjustable, and readily tailored to your requirements, akin to Gentoo or Arch. It is easy and simple to install on other computers. It has the support of an extremely intelligent and accomplished academic community. It is genuinely a watchmaking jewel, meticulously designed and executed, considering the great functions it fulfills. a distribution that helps system administrators, software developers, academic scientists, and users of all kinds. This is a friendly and helpful forum with good user guides, support videos, and manuals. More than 100,000 software packages can be found in its repository. They also have a very well-maintained, cutting-edge packing system. The rest find it fascinating because of its atomic, immutable properties and possibility of "rolling back." I use Linux and have worked with Gentoo, Arch, and FreeBSD for a number of years. I am quite interested in the QubeOS and Redox ideas, and NixOS is an extremely highly configurable Linux operating system for very specific uses.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 5
Date: 2024-06-05
Votes: 16
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I have to say this is an awesome and game-changing distro -- if you are skilled enough to handle the weird and unforgiving syntax that you need to use in your config file, on which everything depends.
I really love the way you can move back and forth between different desktop environments and various versions of packages, with total impunity on the system level. Just modify your config file, and NixOS will take care of everything like magic.
However, when it comes to your Home partition with all those dot files and other configuration files, you are pretty much on your own to manage the mess you will create by all the above-mentioned moving back and forth.
The forum is very helpful. But you need to be relatively skilled to take advantage of the help.
The documentation can be extremely helpful or totally misleading or non-existent. Googling for blog posts and forum posts might find you exactly what you need, or might find a fix that doesn't work anymore, or a solution that works as a "flake" or "overlay" or some other feature you are not using and not familiar with.
The amount of available packages and programs to install is truly impressive. But if what you need is not in there, you have some tough work ahead of you to build your own package the "NIX" way. (Almost everything must be done the "NIX" way.) This is often easy if you are skilled at that kind of thing.
There is a lot of politics and bad vibes going on in the community, which you just have to ignore, and fortunately, that not hard at all to do.
Sometimes, installation of seemingly small packages can take a long time, during which your CPU is chugging away, due to the unique way that NixOS does things. Same with updates.
In short, NixOS is both great and terrible, which is why I give it a 5.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-05-16
Votes: 18
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I tried fedora a year go and used for a while, but ended up going back to windows. Now around a year of using windows i switched back and decided to pick nixos because i was already using nix (the package manager) on my macbook. I am blown away by nixos.
First of all. Installing the stupid nvidia drivers was a single line change in the config file.
I can fearlessly try out any other desktop env and even play around with wayland without being scared. The roleback feature is absolutely amazing and saved me a lot of headache when trying to use wayland on nvidia. (needed to enable modsetting and an env variable)
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-05-15
Votes: 19
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A distribution ahead of it's time! It's totally awesome to be able to customize your OS from a single config file. Since it's immutable you don't have to fear power loss. Love the fact you can rollback generation in case you're not satisfied with an upgrade. This distribution can be as bleeding edge as Arch if you want. This is the future! It's definitely putting an end to my distro-hopping days. Plasma 6 had some crashes on Fedora 40 for me and I did not like the fact that with Arch, you sometimes have to do manual interventions but not with Nixos: it is really like a dream coming true. If you're skeptical about this distribution, go ahead and fire it up in a virtual machine before installing it on bare metal but I must warn you: once you go nixos you never go back!
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Version: 23.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-03-04
Votes: 22
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This distribution is different in a very fundamental way. It basically breaks the normal linux file system layout and invents something better.
As crazy as it sounds, it works incredibly well, it is a bit difficult as to use it you have to learn a lot. But then it pays off and gets better and better. Basically this circumvents everything related to dependency hell, backward compatibility and multiple simultaneous versions of a program/lib one one OS. Many use cases for docker or flatpak are just obsolete when using nixos.
One other important difference is that the operating system is defined in a declarative way, so switching to a different machine or just using multiple machines with different software/desktop environments or whatever, is just no issue at all.
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Version: 23.11
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-02-28
Votes: 18
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I have been using Debian for over a year, and I have previously been a happy user of Mint, Antergos, Puppy Linux, and sometimes a dual-booter with Windows. I am very happy with my Debian setup and was not considering changing distros anytime soon. However, I like to stay updated with the latest Linux developments and have been curious about NixOS for some time. I substituted my Windows partition for a "Linux testing" partition about a week ago, and have been playing around with NixOS 23.11.
I am really, really impressed, and I am happy to welcome NixOS as my new daily driver! I have never written a review on DistroWatch before, but I now feel this time I ought to.
I certainly understand how many users would rather have a distro that doesn't demand some initial effort. Yet, it is important to recognize that there is not a single distro that fulfils everyone's needs and expectations, so I consider a 10/10 distro to be one that is great at doing what it is intended to do. On this standard, I feel like the features that make NixOS different from other distros (single config file, declarative language, Nix package system, containers, rebuilding philosophy) are also what make NixOS the future of Linux, or at least part of its future. They are also what give NixOS its learning curve, which I don't find as steep as others do, perhaps because I've used declarative programming languages before. In exchange, it gives you a lot. These come to mind as the features that stand out for me:
- the ability to try out cutting-edge Linux developments within your daily driver distro, with the peace of mind of reliability, stability and rollbackability;
- extreme customizability;
- a level of familiarity with how your setup works (while of course retaining the other level where you can use your computer without thinking about how it works!);
- reproducibility of your setup onto new installs.
I think this is a distro I can stick with.
I rate NixOS a 9 out of 10 because there has been a hiccup. Its rebuilding philosophy (which is one of the features that makes NixOS great) generates some bloat in the \boot partition, which by default in most machines tends to be rather small. My EFI partition's 100 MB capacity got filled up every few rebuilds. Running the 'garbage collector' is not really something I want to do that often, and it sometimes did not seem to clear enough space, either. Enlarging the partition is not straightforward and the Boot Repair Disk live ISO on my thumbdrive came in handy to solve some issues that arose. Yet, I feel like the NixOS devs could anticipate this and provide the NixOS live installer with a tool for resizing the EFI partition. Secondly, some have pointed out that the documentation is not good. I would say it is irregular, I've found some bits that are not that good.
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Version: 23.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-02-19
Votes: 6
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So far so good. I am starting to like NixOS. At first I was skeptical. But I was fighting dependency hell trying to get multiple projects to build correctly and get along. I don't know how many times I needed to install Debian, wiping the system starting fresh. So I could get myself to a place where I had a good documented verified setup.
I figured why not move things into linux containers. Problem is with Canonical being the bloated company they are just screwed with the licensing of lxc / lxd container management system basically making it impossible to pull images from the main repository that most images are hosted on. This means, lxc / lxd basically can't be used to install anything besides ubuntu containers with a bunch extra kerjiggery - completely breaking the reproducible system setup I was going for. Some projects need to be installed in debian, because that's what they were build on, and others can run on a lighter better system like Alpine or Void. Being unable to pull these images in with lxc meant I needed to look for alternative solutions. The project incus is a rewrite and fork of the lxc / lxd containers that canonical screwed up, so naturally it was a drop in replacement. The question I had next was, what host system to drop it into.
I chose NixOS as a base system to run everything else, because with a simple config file, I could rebuild and reproduce the system exactly like I wanted it in theory.
So I tried it, Installed NixOS - few small hiccups, had to restart a few times to get the hang of how the installer worked etc. Got familiar with it. Read a few of their docs on basic configuration changes. Added the one configuration line I needed for incus and did a 'nixos-rebuild switch --update' boom, I had incus on my system ran through basic configuration with it, pulled down a copy of the debian image and a copy of the alpine image for docker stuff. The system is chugging along without a hiccup. I am actually very impressed. Added a few other essential to me tools into the configuration file, wget, vim, screen, tmux, zenith, enabled the ssh server, did a switch and system rebuild. Restarted and everything is running beautifully.
I can now snapshot debian and other containers make whatever change i need to, and if things break, its a simple revert of a snapshot instead of a complete reinstall. So much simpler, and I don't have to worry about the underlying system that everything is built on drifting and breaking, needing me to rebuild all my containers or migrate them to another host. Just tweak the config file and rebuild, if things break, rollback.
It is a steep learning curve and a bit of a change in mindset to use NixOS, but so far so good. We will see how things work out in the longterm, but I am happy!
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Version: 23.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-02-17
Votes: 4
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Title: NixOS: A Revolutionary Operating System for Power Users
Review:
As a seasoned Linux enthusiast, I've explored numerous distributions over the years, but none have left me as impressed and satisfied as NixOS. From its innovative approach to package management to its declarative system configuration, NixOS stands out as a truly revolutionary operating system for power users.
One of the standout features of NixOS is its unique package manager, Nix, which employs a functional and purely functional approach to package management. Unlike traditional package managers, Nix ensures that package installations are isolated from one another, eliminating dependency hell and ensuring system stability. With Nix, users can effortlessly roll back to previous system states, making system upgrades and changes a stress-free experience.
Another aspect that sets NixOS apart is its declarative system configuration model. Instead of modifying configuration files directly, users define their system configuration in a single, human-readable Nix expression. This approach not only makes system administration more transparent but also facilitates reproducibility and consistency across different machines.
Furthermore, NixOS boasts a thriving and active community that is always ready to provide assistance and guidance. Whether you're a seasoned Linux user or a newcomer, you'll find ample resources, tutorials, and forums to help you make the most of NixOS.
In terms of performance, NixOS shines brightly. Its lightweight design and efficient resource management ensure snappy responsiveness even on older hardware. Additionally, NixOS's minimalistic approach to system services means that unnecessary bloat is kept to a minimum, resulting in a streamlined and efficient computing experience.
Security is also a top priority for NixOS. With built-in features such as sandboxing and containerization, users can rest assured knowing that their system is protected against potential threats and vulnerabilities. Additionally, NixOS's transparent and auditable package management system ensures that only trusted and verified software makes its way onto your system.
Overall, NixOS is a game-changer in the world of Linux distributions. Its innovative approach to package management, declarative system configuration, and emphasis on security and performance make it a top choice for power users and enthusiasts alike. If you're looking for a stable, reliable, and cutting-edge operating system, look no further than NixOS. With its 10/10 rating, it's clear that NixOS is truly in a league of its own on DistroWatch.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-01-21
Votes: 7
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There's a rather large learning curve, learning a whole new way of configuring linux. The documentation at times is pretty poor. It was a lot of trial and error getting the config working well. But once setup it works great, and is reproducible. It is extremely easy getting all the programs you want setup and installed from the get go. I like how you can easily roll the system back, in case one of my changes had unpredictable outcomes. Keeping everything up to date is easy and no thought goes into it. It's not for beginners or for people not willing to do things in a whole new way. But it works well once it's setup.
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-01-07
Votes: 14
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This is a really great distro.
My main problem with other distros is that you can break them and they usually break at the worst time possible, resulting in time wasted on just fixing stuff. With NixOS that isn't really a problem. Since everything is in a config, you can simply rollback to a previous version of a config and BAM, just like that you have reverted a breaking change. Also the config helps you remember what changes you have made, which you can then later share and they will work for other.
There is a bit of a learning curve, although for me it wasn't a lot of hassle.
Although I do have one criticism for NixOS. Not all apps are working (example .deb apps or snap apps), which is not suitable for me to install on a work laptop (since some crucial work apps are only made for ubuntu and fefora) and additionally, since you should make everything through a config, this can sometimes take a lot longer since some niche information may be difficult to find.
All in all, I would still recommend NixOS. The fact that you can have everything in a config file makes it a lot easier to maintain than any other distro. No accidental system breaks and you will not forget what changes you have made.
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-12-16
Votes: 33
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Finally, no more distro hopping.
I have finally found a distrobution that suits me perfectly. Not only it allows me to use the computer how I want it, but I can reproduce the same system in case I have to reinstall, which is so rare since I have daily droven this for 5 months, which is half the time I have daily droven Linux as a whole.
Literally no other distro works for me, Debian, adding PPAs are a nightmare, Arch sounded like the best distro by many people, and I gave it a try, but I realized it broke very often, due to me as I would occasionally configure something incorrectly. I continously switched between the two and ever switched back to Windows 10 LTSC (My Laptop supports 11, but I hate 11, therefore the reason I switched to Linux) because I did not know which Linux distro suited me, untill NixOS started trending, but still I did not know how good the distro would be untill I gave it a try.
And literally after switching I never looked back, I never reinstalled my system after the switch because it was rock solid and I could easily install whatever I wanted and I could reproduce my whole system.
Literally I don't understand why this distro is now looked down upon, it is the best Linux distro in my opinion, it like others has a laerning curve, but after you make that perfect configuration, you will never go back to cany other distro or Windows 10/11 (11 and regular Windows 10 22H2 suck so much)
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-11-29
Votes: 10
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A very promising and unlike any other operating system. It has many advantages, especially for the corporate sector.
It has many innovative features that most other systems do not have.
The system is characterized by reliability, root is mounted (ro), all programs are executed in a sandbox, ease of rolling back the state after an update. The most important thing is declarative builds and deployments. It supports a lot of programs, even more than Arch and AUR. And if that's not enough, there is Flatpak and AppImage. This system is not for beginners.
I have switched all my laptops and servers to NixOS.
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-11-27
Votes: 10
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I really really really wanted it to work for me. I've been using their package manager on Debian for quite a while, and it's been working to perfection, which made me very excited to try it.
And then the problems started…
Setting a fully qualified domain name didn't work, but that's okay. No hard feelings. I can live without it.
Mullvad VPN client didn't work at all. I was going to try and run it containerized but didn't get to it on time because of the other problems I had.
Firefox was crashing like crazy. Maybe one of the extensions was at fault? It would take time and effort to figure this out, so temporarily I switched to Firefox ESR.
Dropbox was complaining I was using an outdated version. The workaround was to use flatpak. I had enough of flatpak on Debian and wanted to get rid of it. That's why I chose NixOS… which forced me to use flatpak. Ugh!
And then came the final drop: there was no way I could make jupyter lab work. It is a requirement for me. I tried everything, all to no avail, so sadly enough, I had to give up on it.
I'm reinstalling Debian and the Nix package manager. Sorry, NixOS…
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-10-08
Votes: 18
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NixOS is a flavour of Linux that will ingratiate some and infuriate others.
If "purely functional" is meaningful to you, then this is clearly the right choice.
Even if it doesn't, this could be a great distribution. There are no "what do I have installed" or "why are all the config files in different formats" or "how did I do that" questions. Your entire system configuration is defined in a single place and you simply tell your OS to work the way you specified. Gone are the days where you need to remember the format of a dozen different configuration files. Gone are the days when you don't know exactly how your computer is configured. Gone are the days when you can't get your computer reconfigured exactly how you had it before.
It's amazing.
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-09-25
Votes: 11
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This distro... works. No bug, no lag, gigantic repo.
It may seem trivial to say that, but I always encountered bugs or lags in my distrohopping journey : fedora is quite flashy, but bugs and crashes... Ubuntu has not, but Ubuntu is laggy to me... Arch is the solution... but Arch seems fragile if not maintained enough... so Manjaro ? No Manjaro can break anytime... so Debian ? Too old...
I was never satisfied... until NixOS.
Even if you're not interested in the technology behind (read-only, reproducibility, security, etc.), when the main difficulty is behind (the first configuration, Nix devs you should focus on that)... this becomes a quasi no-brain distro.
I want to test "ncdu" I did not know ? Hop : nix-shell -p ncdu and BIM.
It seems great ? Ok : I add ncdu in my environment.systemPackages and it will ALWAYS be there, even if I change my PC and install NixOS on a new one...
So... try it.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-09-06
Votes: 8
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Spanning a tech career over 22 years using macOS to Gentoo I am thrilled to be using NixOS and its's capabilities on all my devices and in all respects I possibly can. It's a distro, it's a package manager, it's a language. I don't even want to compare it to other linux distros because it is simply in a class of its own (not to diminish other OSes and PMs). I am now learning something new every day, taking notes and to reiterate excited about this amazing technology and interested in how the future of compute and human / computer interaction could be changed as this project progresses. Purely Functional.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-08-24
Votes: 8
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NixOS is the only system I'm willing to stick with because of its reproducibility, declarative nature, and composability.
With declarative configuration, you can manage your entire system just like managing code.
With reproducibility, you no longer have to deal with strange environment differences (not absolute, but these issues are significantly reduced).
With composability, you can manage your configuration in a modular way. This is especially effective when you need to manage multiple computers because you no longer have to synchronize configurations between different machines by copying them. Instead, you can extract their common parts for unified maintenance and individually maintain the differing parts. Finally, you can combine the different parts, just as you would do when writing any other code.
Using NixOS allows me to continuously improve my skills, and it provides me with a high ceiling, making it feel like second nature to use. In this regard, it's very similar to tools like Vim, Emacs, and Git. If you also enjoy these tools and have experience with functional programming languages, there's a good chance you'll also appreciate NixOS.
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-08-16
Votes: 13
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NixOS: A Funky Dive into Linux's Future
Hey there, tech adventurers! Ready to take a whirlwind tour through the neon-lit alleyways of NixOS? Buckle up, 'cause we're diving into an OS that's not just playing by the rules – it's rewriting them.
**Cool Cats of NixOS**
1. **Package Party**: Ever been trapped in dependency limbo? NixOS says bye-bye to that mess. Their package game is like an ultra-chic closet where software can't fight over the spotlight. Multiple versions? No sweat.
2. **Epic Configs**: Kiss your config chaos goodbye! NixOS lets you boss your system around with a slick language. No need to beg text files for mercy – just declare what you want and bam! It's a modern art masterpiece.
3. **Rollback Ready**: Worried about stepping on the wrong upgrade toes? NixOS has your back. It's like an "undo" button for your system. Say goodbye to the days of regret and embrace the zen of easy rollbacks.
**Speed Bumps on the Groove**
1. **Funky Fresh**: Hold onto your hat – NixOS ain't your grandpa's Linux. It's got a style all its own, and that means a bit of a learning curve. If you're a noob, be ready to spin your wheels a bit.
2. **Lonely Road**: NixOS is forging ahead, but the trail might be a bit quieter. Finding help might mean digging a little deeper. If you're used to a bustling crowd, this might feel like a solo dance.
But hey, ain't no party like a NixOS party! If you're down to dance to a different beat, this OS is like that underground club where you discover the next big thing before everyone else catches on. Neon lights, futuristic vibes – NixOS isn't just an OS, it's a state of mind. Whether you're a coding guru or just dipping your toes into Linux waters, this is one spin you won't forget.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-08-03
Votes: 5
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Previously tumbleweed was my go to distro, I thought no other distro would ever be good enough or unique enough to make me switch, but nixos is that distro, its very unique, its immutable but unlike many other immutable distro's you can change basically everything about it, you're not just locked into gnome or plasma, or whatever software the distro maintainers give you, if you don't want a full desktop environment and you want to use just a window manager instead then you can, you can even install both and pick and choose what to boot into and not have any of the software from the desktop environment show up when you're in the window manager.
You can even install their unstable rolling release along side their stable fixed release and pick and choose what to boot into, so you can literally run the fixed release and the rolling release of the same distro on the same PC, unlike pretty much every other distro where you have to choose if you want to run either a fixed release or a stable release, so there's no risk when updating or running unstable because you can just boot back into your previous stable version just as easy as it is to boot into an older kernel in the grub menu, you can also install different versions of the same software, all your configs are stored in one or two files, so its a piece of cake to reinstall your system to exactly how it was before, you can even save different config files for different desktops or window managers.
It does require a learning curve if you like to tinker though, and documentation is lacking in some areas, but apart from that its awesome, I recently put nixos on my mothers two laptops because one of them broke when I upgraded debian bullseye to bookworm, now I don't have to worry about an upgrade breaking the system, its kind of like having btrfs snapshots without having to run btrfs.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-30
Votes: 11
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NixOS is an absolute game-changer! Unparalleled stability and reliability at the cutting edge. The Nix package manager ensures seamless software management and rollbacks. With an amazing community, ultimate customization, and top-notch security, it's the best Linux distro out there! Don't miss out!
NixOS offers deterministic goodness like no other! Thanks to its innovative Nix package manager, you can rest assured that your system will remain consistent and reproducible across installations and updates. This means no more unexpected surprises or conflicts, making NixOS an absolute joy to use. Say goodbye to dependency headaches and embrace a world of predictable, reliable computing bliss!
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-21
Votes: 8
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Among the Linux distributions I've used so far, NixOS is by far the best. It has all the features I've been looking for and couldn't find before. Linux means freedom to me. I'm not afraid of making mistakes with NixOS, and that makes me feel even more free. I used to frequently switch distributions, but now I believe I will spend many years with NixOS.
Give NixOS a chance without a doubt, you won't regret it. Perhaps you, too, will find what you have been searching for, just like I did for years.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-15
Votes: 4
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Yes, it is superb as an OS and not only that.
From my point of view it is the most versatile operating system. It is so well built from the architectural stage that it competes with the very powerful operating systems of the past and present.
Traditional Windows and UNIX operating systems do not have this paradigm, I wish they did.
Here we are talking about the reproduction of things; you can quickly have a system prepared with everything you had 20 years ago, so that you can feel the experience from then at least from time to time.
You can go ahead with the updates without worrying. if you compare the operating systems Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, AlmaLinux, Fedora, CentOS, Arch Linux and others with NixOS. You will always have a broken OS from time to time, due to incompatibilities; which does not happen with NixOS.
We don't like things that don't work and are broken!
Notice for the other Linux operating systems, it should improve the user experience and configuration.
You have your own build system, which gives you a lot of freedom to build things.
Even if it's hard to learn, it's worth it. you know why it's worth it, because you're a programmer and you can learn new and beautiful things in this life.
A powerful system that can be customized.
You can go back in time to boot for the configuration you want, which gives you a fantastic experience.
You can have multiple versions of the same program with small changes made by you; just slightly modifying some derivatives.
You can go to different configuration branches to experience old and new things or complicated hardware architectures.
You can have what you want with this operating system. Because this OS preserves the Linux philosophy; you to be the master of the operating system, and the system to do exactly what you want.
The UX/DX experience is quite good. A reliable system with documentation full of examples.
Come on Linux community, let's make this operating system a flagship operating system.
I want this operating system to be very attractive like Android, to be used by many people, to have many AI and Blockchain capabilities.
From my point of view it is an operating system from the future.
And I will always use it from now on.
Thank you to the Nix community, for what achievements you have had, have and will have.
I will stay with you.
I wish that whoever reads this note, will come back here again and share this further.
The future is a phoenix bird.
IN - 07.2023 :)
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Version: unstable
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-07-06
Votes: 0
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Has been a rock solid distro for me. Has a installer these days but to use you have to learn the nixos language to make use of nix. If I want to setup dev env I have to read more.
Their wiki and the search for packages often get you the rest of the way to your goal.
Their stable repo is nice if you just like to have two major releases per year. And minimize the update cycles.
Nix has had more prebuilt kernels then arch repo, I think there is enough good software without adding anything.
I use some flatpaks for steam and games, and I got what I need.
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-01
Votes: 2
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this is a good distro to use. This distro has multiuser package management (system packages, system wide local packages, and user wide local packages) ability to roll back with ease, it is immutable, and it is quite up to date. There are also tons of packages for nixos. NVIDIA works great on nixos, broadcom wifi drivers work great on nixos, flatpaks work great on nixos (there is a way to fix the mouse icon issue in flatpaks) You also don't have to deal with dependency hell on nixos, you can have multiple versions, each user can have its own packages without needing root access, and it is a very reliable linux distro.
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Version: 23.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-06-30
Votes: 0
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I was afraid to use NixOS because it is considered an advanced distro, but the installation was smooth thanks to the Calam installer. I have been using it for a week now, and the results are satisfactory. Just one problem, I have had difficulty integrating NixOS with the use of another package manager like PIP. I liked this new paradigm of handling packages and configurations. I always considered version control and dependency management a mess in Linux. NixOS provides a system reordering. Furthermore, it allows me to better plan my configurations and have confidence in its stability in the long term.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-06-28
Votes: 3
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I'm currently using EndeavourOS and NixOS is currently on everyone's lips, so I thought I'd have a look for myself. The installation went smoothly, because there is a graphical installer, which as you are used to, the basics can be configured (language, user, DE, partitioning, ...). When I was then booted I wanted to build and install my system via the declarative config file of nix of course. This takes longer than usual, but once you have created this file, you can reuse it for every installation. For startup and important info I used the "Getting Started With NixOS" guide from It's FOSS, I can recommend it to anyone switching over.
And what can I say, I haven't used it for very long, so I can't say anything about stability yet, but so far I like it very much and I am considering using it as a daily driver.
The only criticism I can think of so far is that if you don't know NixOS at all, you won't get any help when starting the OS. You have to look for it yourself. But since this is an advanced distro, I think that's ok.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-06-25
Votes: 4
|
By far paradigm shifting and certainly the future of operating systems.
No more needing to reinstall your OS each 2 years or fixing package/lib incompatibility issues!.
Despite the documentation problem everyone in the community says, I believe that tooling should be more consistent with more guides and examples on how to use it and which benefits users can gain from that, I say that because the community is split to those who use flakes a long with nix commands, and those who don´t, which makes kinda complicated to wrap things in your head.
Language is not perfect but far more cool and productive than using yaml, tooling is not perfect but with time it will improve a lot (see Nix language server, LSPs formatters, NixOps lorri home manager and et cetera...).
Community is getting larger and larger and more distros are adopting the idea of an immutable operating system, it seems that things are getting better.
For those who are beginning right now, take your time and don't rush to do all things once at a time, nix sure has a lot of capabilities but it's important to understand why it's so good. I recommend reading a blog series that helped me (even tho I use it a long time ago) to understand some key concepts I didn't understand before, it's called "Nix from First Principles: Flake Edition" from Tony Finn
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Version: 21.11
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-06-02
Votes: 12
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I have been using linux systems for 10 years. Basically fedora, arhlinux, debian, opesuse, dozens of their various derivatives. I even ventured into the territory of freebsd and gentoo. I am an engineer and self-taught in the world of IT, and with that I see the greatness of nixos. I installed it for the first time a few weeks ago. Getting the basic system up and running doesn't require a lot of effort, but it's just the surface and moving on requires hard learning, especially from those who don't have programming experience. The cleanliness, lightness, flexibility and stability of the system are impressive compared to traditional gnu/linux solutions. You get a special thrill when you work with it, on it. I appreciate that it is resource-based, without dependency chaos, and creative. These directly and indirectly free up a lot of development energy, especially if there will already be a large number of automated modules available to users on a particular topic. I find the integration of non-nix packages particularly problematic. By simplifying this, you can go a long way. It has a bright future. I hope it will not be contaminated with flatpak and snaps technologies and will remain consistent.
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-05-02
Votes: 8
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Once you start to understand it and liking it, you don't want to leave the Nix ecosystem.
Its most unique feature: the feeling of freedom it provides, allowing users to FEARLESSLY modify configurations without risking system damage.
With the rollback feature, you return to a previous working state as easily as selecting one of your previous NixOS "generation.". That's it!
Although there's a learning curve to Nix language, for me the key is to start simple and build upon it gradually.
The most complex type, a set, (think of it a some named fields containing a value that is either a string, an interger, a version number, a url, a function... or again a set) is used super-frequently, but understanding it makes mastering the Nix language and ecosystem really achievable.
As you become familiar with it (just play with it regularly), you'll realize Nix Language is DIFFERENT, not DIFFICULT.
With my last laptop I began using Ubuntu for convenience, but soon installed the Nix package manager due to its advantages in development. Eventually, I re-installed NixOS in dual boot and haven't looked back since. Now, I even consider only using Ubuntu as containers within NixOS.
In summary, NixOS offers an unparalleled sense of freedom and flexibility, making it a worthwhile endeavor for those willing to learn its unique language.
Last advice for novices: Dont mistake Nix Language syntax with C/Java/Javascript. Here curly braces and semi-colons means a set, it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Indeed it is so much SIMPLER... but hey... different...
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-04-08
Votes: 7
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A bit of a learning curve, but once you get your head around it, it's by far the most exciting, promising and technically sound distro you'll ever use.
You are not convinced? Try nix-shell -p supertuxkart and play the game without installing it permanently on your system!
Still not sure? Then copy your configuaration.nix file from your github repository and reproduce your system to any computer you like.
And the list goes on... I haven't even touched on the experimental features, such as flakes!
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Version: 22.11
Rating: 7
Date: 2023-04-01
Votes: 3
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This is an extreme operating system that I want to love. I'm grateful it exists. I really like the nix package manager. That said, unless you have already made the investment, you are going to spend a lot more time than you want to learning how to work around NixOS. In many respects it is NOT gnu/linux, despite meeting the criteria when you look at the kernel and software running on it. That is because it bucks generations of conventions when it comes to how you install and run software. NixOS follows a radical philosophy of dependency management and makes heavy use of linking to create virtual environments. There is no opt-out of this, the operating system is really built this way.
Definitely worth installing on a second machine or as dual boot if you are interested in a long road of learning. Definitely not worth installing as your primary OS if you have used other operating systems (intentionally left broad: eg, Ubuntu, Windows, Gentoo, iOS) before and want something you understand and can use.
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Version: 22.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-03-01
Votes: 17
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NixOS is a bit of a rabbit hole, but it's one that will make you wonder why every other distro isn't doing it this way!
The nix package manager is neat & worth checking out in it's own right, if you're not looking to completely revamp your entire system setup.
However, the real achievement by the Nix team is NixOS - I will never use another OS.
Having your entire system declared in a version-controlled file is obviously beneficial. Rollbacks allow for confident experimentation, knowing that bricking your system is really only bricking that *version* of your system, and can be reverted easily upon reboot. It's a tinkerer's dream OS.
It has a very steep learning curve, once you get into the realm of flakes & functions. However, your configuration.nix file really doesn't need all that. You can do perfectly fine with a single config file describing your whole system, from what file system & kernel to use all the way up to specific versions of user packages. Drop your laptop into your bathtub? You no longer have to spend a whole day getting your system back the way you like it. Just install nixos, git clone your config repo, & `nixos-install`. Done!
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Version: 22.11
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-01-20
Votes: 8
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In my opinion, NixOS is a great OS. This is because NixOS, other than Guix, is the only OS that offers declarativity while still being good.
NixOS is very organized due to all your settings being inside files. For package installation, you add the package to a list inside a file.
However, with the new addition of Nix Flakes, everything becomes harder to install. Due to this, I give the OS a 9/10.
Also, this OS is pure preference. Even if the OS gets good reviews, you might not like it. Maybe you like immutability and automatic package and dependency management. Your choice. Personally, I like declarativity and package version management.
If you want to use NixOS, make sure to install home-manager. Otherwise Nix is kinda bad.
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Version: 22.11
Rating: 1
Date: 2022-12-06
Votes: 0
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Holy cow this is this bad. This is not for beginners. There is just way too much manual work with this one.
Not exactly certain what or who this is for. As a daily driver, no way.
With so many choices out there, this one is not even on my radar.
Straight away, had quite a few hardware issues which honestly was quite surprising.
Performance was also lacking. I suppose due to the hardware issues.
Tried the KDE edition which out of the box was missing Discover. There is no Software Center either.
Reminds me of EndevourOS which is equally terrible.
Sorry not for me.
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-12-02
Votes: 9
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good, but room for improvement
And one day you will definitely sit in a puddle, because that stuff could broke something on your system.
In a generic distribution there is no any easy way to go through the issue, but in NixOS you will manage it by using only
one command "nixos-rebuild switch --rollback"! And that is it. This is like git in programming world:
your system in one stable state, you can look around, make experimental changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in that state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.
not really for beginners, but recommended
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-11-16
Votes: 17
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After a terrible learning curve, you begin to learn the power of NixOS : the system is quasi-indestructible and infinitely reproductible...
1. You destroyed something ? First, congratulations, it's difficult because everything is read-only. But no problem, just reboot to the previous version. Everything stays intact until you "collect-garbages" (a nix command).
2. You need Firefox with 1500 strange options and different ones for 150 different users ? No problem, when configured the first time, the next deployment are instantaneous. No need to re-set the settings every time you test something or add a new user.
Because your system AND users AND sysconfigs AND userconfigs AND applications AND apps configurations are declarative. A simple nixos-rebuild and there you go, a fresh new system, ready to use.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-10-22
Votes: 11
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To me, this is the end-all-be-all OS. It's the only OS I've encountered so far that allows *complete customization by configuration*. The fact that builds are reproducible means that I can have complete confidence that the OS will always work. If a build fails? Revert a version.
The only downside is that the learning curve is steep. But come to think of it, that's not the fault of the OS. That's caused by the mess of the current ecosystem that NixOS is (in my opinion) the only sane answer to.
Giving it a rating of 10 comes from the fact that my life as a developer and FOSS engineer has become massively more productive and straight-forward. Nix flakes are a gift to anyone working with software. Thanks!
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-25
Votes: 3
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Having spent a number of years with ArchLinux, over the last year or more I have moved to NixOS as my main driver for servers and notebooks. I also use it to compose docker images etc.
I like how the community shares their .dotfile configurations and how the makeup of the configurations is how you declaratively manage the system. It just feels much tidier than the imperative methods that are used in most desktop systems.
It takes a little of study to come to grips with the Nix language and the documentation could be better - but the community is excellent.
There might be the odd trade-off required when using proprietary packages that are not compiled for NixOS. I hear there are ways around that too, but not something that has bothered me enough yet to spend time to deal with it.
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-09-08
Votes: 5
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So I recently left the Windows world and hopped back into Linux, which I used to use a lot back between 2012-2015.
I have been distro-hopping like crazy for the last several weeks. I knew I wanted something more advanced than Ubuntu. The problem is that I am also a distro minimalist, meaning I want a naked, raw operating system. Something without any apps installed other than a desktop. I had remembered reading about NixOS years ago, but never gave it a try. I guess now was the time.
Here's what I appreciate about Nix. The graphical installer makes getting started easy. I love the simplicity and cleanness of managing the installed system. I personally do not like Firefox as much as I like Brave. Simply go into the configuration file, delete the line containing Firefox, and add Brave. Boom. Do a simple rebuild of the system, and your system now never even knew Firefox was installed.
Ironically, I chose to add apps using Flathub which also runs in a containerized manner, but does eliminate the need to edit the configuration file every time I want to add an app.
I don't like that Nix doesn't let you choose what file system to use at install time, at least with the auto format function. I also don't like that some of the most necessary commands are hidden away in documentation or on chat boards. For example, how do you update the packages? It isn't as obvious. Minor nitpickings, but I chose the KDE desktop, and there is a broken icon down in the lower left corner. I just deleted it.
I'm still learning about NixOS, but I feel like this is the system to hang with for the long term. Tons of power and flexibility. You have the option between a stable updates channel or a more rolling distro type of channel, called unstable. I would recommend this system strongly.
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-04
Votes: 8
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I finally tried it out. The installer takes away some pressure, as I wasn't confident that I could jump in and set it all up correctly from scratch. Now that I had this base Gnome install though, I realised that the packager and config file setup are not at all as scary as I thought they would be. In fact, it's pretty easy to get your head around and just start building up your OS like you would do with any other distro. The packager is brilliant. It's fast and immensely powerful, and I haven't even delved into ad hoc shell environments and all that jazz yet. A lot of those tools are more geared towards developers anyway, which I'm not any more. And special heads-up for the documentation.. it's really, really good.
The default Gnome is great (I hope the other desktops available are as good as this). It's clean and it's stable and fast. It's the only distro apart from Ubuntu-based ones that automatically found and set up by Brother printer and scanner.
The amount of packages available is awesome as well. The whole thing feels like the stability of Debian with the cutting edge of Arch and the updated Gnome of Fedora. It's incredibly well thought-out. I hope to get my new 'built for linux' laptop soon. I'll be able to try out how easy it is to replicate my current setup on a new machine.
For anyone hesitating to try it out, thinking it might be too messy to deal with, I can assure you that it isn't. I highly recommend this distro.
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Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-08-18
Votes: 13
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There is a certain demographic that NixOS will appeal to, as is evident in the reviews here: expert users who used to distro-hop, always searching for something that works reliably for all their nontrivial needs. Many, myself included, end up settling on NixOS. In this review I'll try to outline why I think that is more of a pattern than a fluke.
NixOS strikes a very good balance between "it just works" and DIY:
"It just works":
- nixpkgs is the largest repository of Linux software in existence, both in number of packages and in number of up-to-date packages
- especially with the graphical installer, installing NixOS to a graphical system is as easy as with all other graphical distros
DIY:
- experimentation without fear of messing up the system (with rollbacks and GC) is rightfully in the spotlight
- Nix is source-based, so you can patch packages on the fly
- declarative configs mean that at the end of the day, all your hard work can be saved to version control, so it doesn't have to be done again, by you or anyone else
- a central configuration keeps it easy to remove cruft that invariably accumulates in imperative OSes
Many DIY folks try to reinvent a subset of NixOS through hand-crafted configs that copy and sync their dotfiles, install packages, etc. Nix formalises this into something easier to maintain and reason about.
The biggest barrier to entry is of course the steep learning curve. The only way to use NixOS is to learn the Nix expression language and surrounding idioms for building software. It takes about a year or so to attain proficiency, or about half that if you have someone helping you. But like with all foundational skills, it pays dividends in the long run.
The benefits of learning Nix:
- ability to build and run any software project with Nix, on any distro and even macOS
- ability to run software without installing it or any dependencies
- by learning how to use the system you also learn how to contribute to nixpkgs / NixOS itself, which is how it has become so large in the first place
- learning the functional paradigm makes you a better engineer overall
I don't expect that the configuration language will be abstracted away (e.g. by GUI) any time soon. But with improved documentation, the learning curve might become more approachable to the general audience. The community is exceptionally active and welcoming to contributions.
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-08-15
Votes: 2
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I tried many of different Linux distributions before and was really happy to meet NixOS suddenly.
There is no doubt that the future of Linux World is NixOS.
In my opinion it will take not much time till NixOS becomes widely used around the whole planet.
IMHO the greatest feature of that distribution is "rollback" possibility. It is awesome.
Imagine that you have installed something that is not exactly you need, you forgotten to prune it
and kept going your searches. Once you've found it and of course you completely forgot about that previously installed
unneeded stuff. And one day you will definitely sit in a puddle, because that stuff could broke something on your system.
In a generic distribution there is no any easy way to go through the issue, but in NixOS you will manage it by using only
one command "nixos-rebuild switch --rollback"! And that is it. This is like git in programming world:
your system in one stable state, you can look around, make experimental changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in that state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.
I recommend it for everyone.
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-07-07
Votes: 14
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Like many of the other reviewers, I have also used, with varying degrees of success and fidelity, many of the popular Linux distributions (Debian, Fedora, Centos, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, KDE Neon, Mint, Arch), as well as some of the underdogs now farther down the list as well. For the record, I probably used Gentoo/Funtoo the longest (c. 15 years), which I finally abandoned[1], but only after having learned a great deal about how Linux works, about its strengths as well as its weaknesses.
NixOS is by far the most interesting distribution I've used to date, and I think -- might be the future of the Linux desktop. Why? NixOS is, quite literally, an OS built completely around its package manager (Nix and the expression language that supports it). It appears to take aim at solving a key problem of most Linux distributions -- the fact that application software is developed and updated at varying speeds, and those applications use versions of key libraries, which themselves are developed independently and thus have their own production timelines, further complicated by the relentless advent of new hardware, and the leap-frogging between the various elements create inconsistencies (at times quite circular) that can become difficult to overcome (so-called dependency hell). This difficulty seems to me the key problem that NixOS targets, and by doing so places **application software** -- and the resulting experience users derive from it -- at the very core of everything.
Many reviews more than a year or so old speak of weakness in documentation. Although still not perfect, the depth and extent of documentation has evidently improved significantly in the meantime. The user group is still small, but growing and (at least in my experience) quite responsive. The installation itself demands only that you understand something about disk partitioning, and are able to customize an configuration file from a generic template to fit your needs. But the key parts are already there: to get a machine up and running is not necessarily a struggle. The struggle really comes later, in gaining a mastery of the Nix language sufficient to fully understand how the system really works, and how to use it create a development environment. This is where better documentation comes in. A key point, however, is that once a satisfactory `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' file is obtained, a user could replicate this setup across many machines, making it possible to obtain a consistent desktop experience.
NixOS may not be for everyone, and understanding its functionality is not trivial, but such hurdles will also likely become less substantial with greater user adoption and deeper documentation. I feel it has tremendous potential, and the investment has been well worth it thus far for me. I'm very grateful to Distrowatch for showcasing it.
[1] Getting bogged down with one too many KDE-QT library issues, and recognizing I was spending far less time _using_ the system than I was recompiling it.
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-06-15
Votes: 9
|
I have installed most Linux distributions over the last 10 years, however, I have to admit that NixOS is definitely something unique.
I have this installed on my two laptops with quiet different specs running Gnome3 with a fresh install the memory used is around 650MB this is the lowest I have seen. This has enabled me to run NixOS on my old Dell that has only 2GB of ram and 32GB of emmc, on which it runs fast enough to be usable.
I have taken the config from that and used it on my other Dell that has 16GB of ram and a 500GB SSD, it flies but it made setting up the second machine really simple.
Pros: -
* Dead easy to install using the Calamares installer.
* Good choice of DEs.
* An opportunity to learn something new.
* Over 80000 packages available in the repository
Cons: -
* You do need to be comfortable with editing a config file, but once you get your head around the concept, you'll love NixOS
I am loving NixOS surprise yourself and give it a go!
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Version: 22.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-05-31
Votes: 8
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I installed nixos-gnome-22.05.342.a634c8f6c1f-x86_64-and even though it says Gnome, it offers several desktops. I chose Xfce. Everything went smooth. Only thing I miss is Synaptic. the nix-env is similar to apt-get, but itI is always better. to use a graphic too;.There are a few things missing from their repo, alacarte and aisleriot solitaire come to mind. I don't understand what being reproducible means. I have not experienced their community yet. This is my first day testing Nix. I think it shows promise.
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Version: 21.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-03-06
Votes: 25
|
That's the way to manage systems. (Nearly) everything can be declared from code. Reproducable, gitops-able, very nice.
With the remote-deployment tools you'll be able to manage a lot of systems without any hassle. You'll be able to move forward very fast because of the recovery concept which comes with the versioning with nix.
The community is very active. You'll find nearly every tool you'll looking for.
Give it a try! Even if the learning courve is steep and you'll have to finger out the special nix syntax. It's worth it!
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Version: 21.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-03-05
Votes: 15
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This distro is different to all other distros in that it has a modern way of managing it. You manage it like a single system, through a single configuration construct. Your configuration can be copied to another installation and will adopt all the configuration. It is idempotent, deterministic, it is how modern Linux should be. I have converted all of my installations over the NixOS with a common set of configuration across them all. Take the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) mentality of programming to system administration. The downside of NixOS is the poor documentation. The documentation is getting better and with more people using NixOS it will continue to improve.
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Version: 21.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-02-14
Votes: 22
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This distro is definitely a hidden gem. Take your time to understand how to edit configuration.nix and it will pay off greatly. I highly recommend
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Version: 21.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-01-14
Votes: 34
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Best thing ever, I can't switch back. My whole system is reproducible now, which allows me to have it running on multiple machines without additional effort. Awesome.
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Version: 21.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-12-10
Votes: 43
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After using NixOS, going back to the usual linux distros is a pain. In my opinion, the nix approach is a large improvement over the usual "get the package and hope it works" approach. Reproducibility is very important for ergonomics, it just deals with so many headaches. That said, the OS is far from being the most user friendly and not being the most ubiquitous means not everything is supported and every use case isn't covered by a random stack overflow post. Learning how nix works in order to use it has a steep learning curve, but still the benefits are worth it (things are also changing very quickly).
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Version: 21.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-12-05
Votes: 35
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To be honest it's not easy to use. Nix language is quite...different from languages that I ever used. But after I get comfortable with the language, I can't leave NixOS. Declarative OS is so awesome, you can have same OS and configuration across different machine. Not only that, if you want to customize package you don't need to package it yourself, you just need to override or add what you want in the configuration, you can even cherry pick package from unstable channel if you want newer package but want your system to stay in stable channel. Also NixOS is super stable, and upgrading to higher version is painless to.
Overall NixOS is the best distro I ever used.
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Version: 21.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-11-30
Votes: 25
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I'll never be able to leave declarative OS'es again, be it GUIX or NixOS.
It can be a bit special getting into, but you will get completely hooked!
Before NixOS i was primarily using Ubuntu-derivations, and it was such a bother to work on multiple set-ups.
Managing servers is so insanely easy with nixos compared to other distros, and switching DE or WM is literally a single line difference in your config.
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Version: 21.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-11-24
Votes: 16
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NixOS has been great, easy-to-use, stable and beautiful looking. I haven’t had any problems using it.
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Version: 21.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-10-25
Votes: 21
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I have been a GNU/Linux User since 2009, having used everything from Mint to SuSE to Gentoo. NixOS was the distro that cured my distrohopping. Be warned: it took me quite some time to get comfortable with the configuration language, but ultimately it turned out to be quite rewarding!
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Version: 21.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-09-24
Votes: 15
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The concept of NixOS is quite amazing! Maybe it will start a new age of package manager. Nix should be encouraged.
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Version: 21.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2021-09-12
Votes: 11
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I switched to NixOS from Gentoo, so that's a very low bar on 'usability'. From my point of view, NixOS is actually extremely easy to use, contrary to what some of the other reviews say. But I realize that a lot of people will be coming from the perspective of Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. and that may not be true for them.
At any rate, I've found NixOS so much better in both concept and execution than any other Linux distro I've tried (Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Puppy Linux, Debian, Slackware, and Gentoo), but especially Gentoo, which has been my primary OS on my desktop and laptop for a year. The packages actually manage to outclass *all of those* in terms of what software, at least the software I need, is available, despite NixOS being much newer in terms of general adoption and having a smaller (I think) userbase than most. Installing new packages and setting up hardware "just works" without needing to deal with USE flag nightmares and kernel recompilation (I generally clung onto Gentoo for the latter, since I want to be able to control the hardware support in the kernel, but NixOS still does this without needing my manual intervention). An entire system rebuild on NixOS is faster than installing a single desktop program on Gentoo, and the initial installation (text-mode) took me maybe 2 hours even with no familiarity with the Nix language. I have also seen no reduction in performance between Gentoo and the binary-distributed Nix, and average performance might actually be slightly higher because I'm not having to constantly bog down my computer by compiling source code.
Only downsides are that it takes up a lot of space, it can be hard to set up development software (CMake, my beloved), and if a package doesn't work because of a distributor error there's not a whole lot you can do, hence not a 10/10. Still the best iteration of Linux out there so far.
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Version: 21.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-07-06
Votes: 10
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NixOS uses a new paradigm for structuring the system, based on the Nix package manager and providing a very high degree of build reproducibility. NixOS is amazing for developers that are willing to go out their comfort zone and learn new ways. It doesn't take long to learn the basics, but it might take some experience to learn how to package software. It provides great tools for developers, like nix-shell which is able to provide highly reproducible development environments, or tools for building lightweight container images using the same package manager.
This is not an easy distribution and requires effort, the status of the documentation is ok, not great, and it requires looking at packages source codes more than you would normally do in another distro, but the benefits are also numerous. It misses a few things that might be given for granted in other distros, such as graphical installers, but the community is active and working to improving the status.
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Version: 21.05
Rating: 5
Date: 2021-06-25
Votes: 3
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The concept behind Nixos is interesting, probably even good. The practical downsides however are mountainous: As soon as anything does not run as expected you are left with a hardly-documented "programming" language that has no easily accessible inner logic (and I am a enthusiastic Haskell programmer, therefore declarative stuff is not new to me). There are some resources to be found in the internet that describe the way to work yourself into a being that is able to work with NixOs. As inner peace and the liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth were not my main objectives (an installation to use at the workplace was) I switched after a day of failed attempts to install emacs and texlive with the packages I need.
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Version: 21.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-06-22
Votes: 10
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Good execution of an absolutely very good paradigm: declarative configuration.
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Version: 20.09
Rating: 1
Date: 2021-05-22
Votes: 2
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I've never seen some technical tool so bad, it's just awful - still not possible to easily install Nix inside a docker image by yourself, as the installation script does not allow root execution (but still requires root). Lesson learned : stay away from Nix.
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Version: 20.09
Rating: 7
Date: 2021-03-25
Votes: 7
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It's a great distro if most of the package you want is already in nixos repo, otherwise you need to build it yourself and, it's not just run "make" command, it must be build with nix way. Since it has different approach than other common distro, when a problem arise, it's very unique, a solution from another linux system most likely wouldn't work, and the poor documentation make it worse. But I like the idea of reproducible configuration, and upgrading and downgrading is painless. It's great for tinkering or used on your personal machine. For work, not so much (unless your team use nixos too)
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Version: 20.09
Rating: 5
Date: 2021-02-20
Votes: 4
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I use this distribution daily in a production environment. It is not a friendly distro. It does some things well. Builds are reproducible and it is kind to developers in that it supports having different software revisions available. But you have to weigh that with the downsides. Documentation is poor, and use community is nowhere near the size of other distros. You are tied to their particular programming language to manage your system. Trivial tasks on other systems require rebuilding the entire system on nixos. The steep learning curve means that you need to figure extra months of training for every person hired to work on it. Packages are kept in one massive folder and symlinked out. This means that no software is going to have it's files and libraries in the place you would expect. It can be gotten around for most well built software but it's a pain. Everything with Nixos is a pain. I feel like it's more theoretical then practical. It has lofty intentions and does stick to the philosophy it's built around fairly well. Which is probably good for students and programmers who are interested in these things. I feel NixOS makes the tradeoff of ease of use and practicality in favor of dogmatic belief in a programming paradigm. I would not recommend it for use in a production environment. I would also not recommend it as a desktop distribution. Unless you are a programmer and someone who is willing to invest a lot of extra time and effort into it for the joy of it acting in a way you think it "should" you are better off with a different distro.
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Version: 20.09
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-02-02
Votes: 12
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I am loving NixOS. It is the distribution people want to use but don't know. Learning curve is steep but worthwhile. Seriously, I cannot go back to other distros, it feels wrong.
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Version: 20.09
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-27
Votes: 7
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The best Linux distribution for humans out there. Period.
Try it. You will not be able to leave it ever behind, once you dive into it.
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Version: 20.09
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-25
Votes: 10
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Best linux distrobution ever!
Reason : Basically unbreakable!, Perfect for work computers!
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Version: 20.09
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-01-20
Votes: 23
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It is the most exciting linux distro I ever used. You can get make your system whatever you want by editing a single file.. /etc/nixos/configuration.nix. If you don't like it, you can revert back from bootloader.
Once you used to the nixos, other linux distributions will feel like bloated ( .bashrc, fstab, user management, sudoers file, package managenent, xorg settings, etc,. :-(
finally, neither it have older packages like debian stable (which are too old ) nor bleeding edge packages like arch linux ( which are too unstable for production machine ). I find the packages are in the sweet spot ( not too old / not too unstable). You dont have to worry about lack of packages. nix has more than 60000 pkgs and there is also NUR ( nix user repository)
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Version: 20.09
Rating: 9
Date: 2021-01-18
Votes: 2
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Good execution of an absolutely fantastic paradigm: declarative configuration.
The single biggest benefit declarative system configuration (and therefore NixOS) brings to you: configure once for your use case and replicate on all your devices.
Or define different use cases and deploy as needed anywhere, including share them with your friends.
Especially DW visitors will have a certain focus on system configuration, now imagine that you want to migrate from an old laptop to a new one:
1. run the installer
2. copy your `configuration.nix` (which has evolved with your every configuration step on your old machine)
3. finish install
4. now you have everything exactly like you had it/wanted, no more post-configuration!
(One exception may be some hardware specific functionalities that may need to be tweaked, but only if the hardware (significantly) differs).
This paradigm can be applied both on system and user level, so you don't have to think about what packages you need after a system change ever again.
To make it even easier:
- refactor your `config*.nix` to use-case and hardware specific files
- put our configs in a git repo
Now you literary have a library of complete system setups uniquely tailored to your needs at your disposal, and you can install the complete OS with all chosen settings and programs with literary **one command**.
Ok, there is a learning curve in the beginning, but just so you never have to spend much time on configuration later on, so it's well invested time.
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Latest Reviews
Project: NixOS
Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-09-11
Votes: 6
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This system is not like other distributions. But talk about its complexity is greatly exaggerated. There is a lot of information on the Internet about how to install and remove packages, how to configure gpu, how to start and stop services via configuration.nix. Of course, I would like all this information to be collected in a wiki. But if information on solving a problem cannot be found on the Internet, friendly discourse.nixos.org forum users come to the rescue. As for me, the system just works now.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-07-24
Votes: 20
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full excelente. excellent project, iexcellent project, it is worth supporting it, its declarative form seems to me an excellent idea of control for the system, its very updated packages, I have been using NixOS for several months and I am very satisfied, and although I am not a programmer, I know it has a learning curve but still, it gives me the ease of building the operating system to my liking, only with what I need it without unnecessary processes and without so much wear and tear and very functional,,, in addition to the ease and variety of choosing and modifying the different environments, I think it is important to support projects like these,
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Project: NixOS
Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-06-21
Votes: 23
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NixOS is different from other Linux distros to a degree that other Linux distros usually aren't, but if you're a believer in the philosophy it's really next level. I don't ever see myself changing distros again unless something comes along with a better take on that same philosophy (there's always room for improvement!)
A lot of discussion about NixOS talks about it from the perspective of a sysadmin - here are some thoughts as a desktop user.
Pros:
- "Declarative" means you can organize and version your system in git. Although you can do this to some degree with dotfiles and setup scripts for other distros, the declarative way can't be beat in terms of being able to organize your stuff.
- "Reproducible" means everything just works. You run into essentially no problems when you're working with the standard stuff in nixpkgs. People like to emphasize how "reproducible" also means "rollback", but ironically it's hard to get yourself in a situation where you need to rollback.
- "Declarative" and "reproducible" together means that you can experiment with other people's config and take what you like. This gives you an incredible third support option compared to documentation and asking the community: just search GitHub.
Cons:
- You have to learn and internalize Nix to be effective. It is a lot to grok and I think that this can be harder than it needs to be since some aspects of configuring Nix could be done in a more intuitive way.
- Docs are bad. I actually don't think this is as bad of a thing as some people make it out to be, but it's true. Once you learn Nix, you just read the nixpkgs code for the Nix side of things and reference ArchWiki for the Linux side of things.
- Lack of FHS means sometimes you have to put in extra work to "Nixify" a program where running it would be trivial on other distros. This is mitigated to a large degree due to how comprehensive nixpkgs is.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-06-17
Votes: 21
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Game changer:
-Zero issues
-Ultra fast
-Centralized configuration
-Easy Snapshots Management
-Not even using BTRFS but ext4 and still works with Snapshots
-Stable release is enough bleeding edge (Gnome 46.2 & Plasma 6 with the current release)
-No manual interventions required
-No breakage
-A distribution ahead of it's time: seriously
-Documentation is good enough for me
-Pure genius concept
-Once you go NixOS you never go back
-Hidden gem among all the distributions out there
-I would highly recommend
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Project: NixOS
Version: 24.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2024-06-14
Votes: 5
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NixOS Review: A Game Changer for Ethical Hacking and Beyond
Ever since I embarked on my Linux journey, I found myself constantly switching between different distributions. This habit of "distro-hopping" often led to frustration as I struggled to find a system that could meet my specific needs as an ethical hacking student. My primary challenge was installing and running various cybersecurity tools; on other distributions, there was always something wrong. Either a part of the tool would not work, or the tool itself would be completely unusable.
However, my experience with NixOS has been nothing short of transformative. NixOS offers a unique and highly effective approach to package management and system configuration, making it incredibly easy to install and maintain cybersecurity tools. Everything just works seamlessly, which is a stark contrast to my previous experiences with other Linux distributions.
Initially, I was hesitant to dive into NixOS due to its perceived complexity. The documentation on nix.org is severely lacking and can be quite challenging to understand for newcomers. If it weren’t for the insightful tutorials by the YouTuber VimJoyer, I most likely would not have made the switch. Thanks to his guidance, I was able to navigate the intricacies of NixOS and unlock its full potential.
NixOS’s stability is vastly superior to any other distro I have used. This reliability is critical for my work in ethical hacking, where a stable environment is essential for running various tools and simulations. Moreover, NixOS is not only excellent for hacking but also for gaming. The flake feature is particularly noteworthy, allowing me to set up different environments or replicate the same setup across multiple machines effortlessly. If I ever mess up, I can simply boot into a previous build, ensuring that my work remains uninterrupted.
One of the standout features of NixOS is its reproducibility. The ability to define the system configuration declaratively means that I can easily recreate my setup on different machines or roll back to a previous state if needed. This feature is a lifesaver, especially in a field where consistency and reliability are paramount.
Despite its many strengths, NixOS does have its drawbacks. The documentation is in desperate need of an overhaul. While the community is incredibly helpful, the official documentation can be a significant barrier for new users. Improving the clarity and comprehensiveness of the documentation would make NixOS more accessible to a broader audience.
In conclusion, NixOS has proven to be an invaluable asset in my journey as an ethical hacking student. Its stability, reproducibility, and ease of use for installing cybersecurity tools have made it my go-to Linux distribution. While the documentation leaves much to be desired, the support from the community and resources like VimJoyer’s tutorials make it possible to overcome this hurdle. I don't see myself switching distros any time soon, as NixOS perfectly meets my needs both for hacking and gaming.
TLDR:
8/10,
PROS : an amazing distro that offers the user stability and reproducibility,
CONS : documentation needs a lot of work
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Project: NixOS
Version: 24.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-06-11
Votes: 4
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Between NixOS 11.23 and 5.24, I am genuinely thrilled. This Linux distribution upholds the entire Linux legacy: it is free software that manages to be both highly configurable and incredibly user-friendly. Among its many notable features is "stability," which I characterize as "solid as a rock" in the best Debian or FreeBSD sense, highly adjustable, and readily tailored to your requirements, akin to Gentoo or Arch. It is easy and simple to install on other computers. It has the support of an extremely intelligent and accomplished academic community. It is genuinely a watchmaking jewel, meticulously designed and executed, considering the great functions it fulfills. a distribution that helps system administrators, software developers, academic scientists, and users of all kinds. This is a friendly and helpful forum with good user guides, support videos, and manuals. More than 100,000 software packages can be found in its repository. They also have a very well-maintained, cutting-edge packing system. The rest find it fascinating because of its atomic, immutable properties and possibility of "rolling back." I use Linux and have worked with Gentoo, Arch, and FreeBSD for a number of years. I am quite interested in the QubeOS and Redox ideas, and NixOS is an extremely highly configurable Linux operating system for very specific uses.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 5
Date: 2024-06-05
Votes: 16
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I have to say this is an awesome and game-changing distro -- if you are skilled enough to handle the weird and unforgiving syntax that you need to use in your config file, on which everything depends.
I really love the way you can move back and forth between different desktop environments and various versions of packages, with total impunity on the system level. Just modify your config file, and NixOS will take care of everything like magic.
However, when it comes to your Home partition with all those dot files and other configuration files, you are pretty much on your own to manage the mess you will create by all the above-mentioned moving back and forth.
The forum is very helpful. But you need to be relatively skilled to take advantage of the help.
The documentation can be extremely helpful or totally misleading or non-existent. Googling for blog posts and forum posts might find you exactly what you need, or might find a fix that doesn't work anymore, or a solution that works as a "flake" or "overlay" or some other feature you are not using and not familiar with.
The amount of available packages and programs to install is truly impressive. But if what you need is not in there, you have some tough work ahead of you to build your own package the "NIX" way. (Almost everything must be done the "NIX" way.) This is often easy if you are skilled at that kind of thing.
There is a lot of politics and bad vibes going on in the community, which you just have to ignore, and fortunately, that not hard at all to do.
Sometimes, installation of seemingly small packages can take a long time, during which your CPU is chugging away, due to the unique way that NixOS does things. Same with updates.
In short, NixOS is both great and terrible, which is why I give it a 5.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-05-16
Votes: 18
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I tried fedora a year go and used for a while, but ended up going back to windows. Now around a year of using windows i switched back and decided to pick nixos because i was already using nix (the package manager) on my macbook. I am blown away by nixos.
First of all. Installing the stupid nvidia drivers was a single line change in the config file.
I can fearlessly try out any other desktop env and even play around with wayland without being scared. The roleback feature is absolutely amazing and saved me a lot of headache when trying to use wayland on nvidia. (needed to enable modsetting and an env variable)
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-05-15
Votes: 19
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A distribution ahead of it's time! It's totally awesome to be able to customize your OS from a single config file. Since it's immutable you don't have to fear power loss. Love the fact you can rollback generation in case you're not satisfied with an upgrade. This distribution can be as bleeding edge as Arch if you want. This is the future! It's definitely putting an end to my distro-hopping days. Plasma 6 had some crashes on Fedora 40 for me and I did not like the fact that with Arch, you sometimes have to do manual interventions but not with Nixos: it is really like a dream coming true. If you're skeptical about this distribution, go ahead and fire it up in a virtual machine before installing it on bare metal but I must warn you: once you go nixos you never go back!
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-03-04
Votes: 22
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This distribution is different in a very fundamental way. It basically breaks the normal linux file system layout and invents something better.
As crazy as it sounds, it works incredibly well, it is a bit difficult as to use it you have to learn a lot. But then it pays off and gets better and better. Basically this circumvents everything related to dependency hell, backward compatibility and multiple simultaneous versions of a program/lib one one OS. Many use cases for docker or flatpak are just obsolete when using nixos.
One other important difference is that the operating system is defined in a declarative way, so switching to a different machine or just using multiple machines with different software/desktop environments or whatever, is just no issue at all.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.11
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-02-28
Votes: 18
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I have been using Debian for over a year, and I have previously been a happy user of Mint, Antergos, Puppy Linux, and sometimes a dual-booter with Windows. I am very happy with my Debian setup and was not considering changing distros anytime soon. However, I like to stay updated with the latest Linux developments and have been curious about NixOS for some time. I substituted my Windows partition for a "Linux testing" partition about a week ago, and have been playing around with NixOS 23.11.
I am really, really impressed, and I am happy to welcome NixOS as my new daily driver! I have never written a review on DistroWatch before, but I now feel this time I ought to.
I certainly understand how many users would rather have a distro that doesn't demand some initial effort. Yet, it is important to recognize that there is not a single distro that fulfils everyone's needs and expectations, so I consider a 10/10 distro to be one that is great at doing what it is intended to do. On this standard, I feel like the features that make NixOS different from other distros (single config file, declarative language, Nix package system, containers, rebuilding philosophy) are also what make NixOS the future of Linux, or at least part of its future. They are also what give NixOS its learning curve, which I don't find as steep as others do, perhaps because I've used declarative programming languages before. In exchange, it gives you a lot. These come to mind as the features that stand out for me:
- the ability to try out cutting-edge Linux developments within your daily driver distro, with the peace of mind of reliability, stability and rollbackability;
- extreme customizability;
- a level of familiarity with how your setup works (while of course retaining the other level where you can use your computer without thinking about how it works!);
- reproducibility of your setup onto new installs.
I think this is a distro I can stick with.
I rate NixOS a 9 out of 10 because there has been a hiccup. Its rebuilding philosophy (which is one of the features that makes NixOS great) generates some bloat in the \boot partition, which by default in most machines tends to be rather small. My EFI partition's 100 MB capacity got filled up every few rebuilds. Running the 'garbage collector' is not really something I want to do that often, and it sometimes did not seem to clear enough space, either. Enlarging the partition is not straightforward and the Boot Repair Disk live ISO on my thumbdrive came in handy to solve some issues that arose. Yet, I feel like the NixOS devs could anticipate this and provide the NixOS live installer with a tool for resizing the EFI partition. Secondly, some have pointed out that the documentation is not good. I would say it is irregular, I've found some bits that are not that good.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-02-19
Votes: 6
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So far so good. I am starting to like NixOS. At first I was skeptical. But I was fighting dependency hell trying to get multiple projects to build correctly and get along. I don't know how many times I needed to install Debian, wiping the system starting fresh. So I could get myself to a place where I had a good documented verified setup.
I figured why not move things into linux containers. Problem is with Canonical being the bloated company they are just screwed with the licensing of lxc / lxd container management system basically making it impossible to pull images from the main repository that most images are hosted on. This means, lxc / lxd basically can't be used to install anything besides ubuntu containers with a bunch extra kerjiggery - completely breaking the reproducible system setup I was going for. Some projects need to be installed in debian, because that's what they were build on, and others can run on a lighter better system like Alpine or Void. Being unable to pull these images in with lxc meant I needed to look for alternative solutions. The project incus is a rewrite and fork of the lxc / lxd containers that canonical screwed up, so naturally it was a drop in replacement. The question I had next was, what host system to drop it into.
I chose NixOS as a base system to run everything else, because with a simple config file, I could rebuild and reproduce the system exactly like I wanted it in theory.
So I tried it, Installed NixOS - few small hiccups, had to restart a few times to get the hang of how the installer worked etc. Got familiar with it. Read a few of their docs on basic configuration changes. Added the one configuration line I needed for incus and did a 'nixos-rebuild switch --update' boom, I had incus on my system ran through basic configuration with it, pulled down a copy of the debian image and a copy of the alpine image for docker stuff. The system is chugging along without a hiccup. I am actually very impressed. Added a few other essential to me tools into the configuration file, wget, vim, screen, tmux, zenith, enabled the ssh server, did a switch and system rebuild. Restarted and everything is running beautifully.
I can now snapshot debian and other containers make whatever change i need to, and if things break, its a simple revert of a snapshot instead of a complete reinstall. So much simpler, and I don't have to worry about the underlying system that everything is built on drifting and breaking, needing me to rebuild all my containers or migrate them to another host. Just tweak the config file and rebuild, if things break, rollback.
It is a steep learning curve and a bit of a change in mindset to use NixOS, but so far so good. We will see how things work out in the longterm, but I am happy!
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-02-17
Votes: 4
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Title: NixOS: A Revolutionary Operating System for Power Users
Review:
As a seasoned Linux enthusiast, I've explored numerous distributions over the years, but none have left me as impressed and satisfied as NixOS. From its innovative approach to package management to its declarative system configuration, NixOS stands out as a truly revolutionary operating system for power users.
One of the standout features of NixOS is its unique package manager, Nix, which employs a functional and purely functional approach to package management. Unlike traditional package managers, Nix ensures that package installations are isolated from one another, eliminating dependency hell and ensuring system stability. With Nix, users can effortlessly roll back to previous system states, making system upgrades and changes a stress-free experience.
Another aspect that sets NixOS apart is its declarative system configuration model. Instead of modifying configuration files directly, users define their system configuration in a single, human-readable Nix expression. This approach not only makes system administration more transparent but also facilitates reproducibility and consistency across different machines.
Furthermore, NixOS boasts a thriving and active community that is always ready to provide assistance and guidance. Whether you're a seasoned Linux user or a newcomer, you'll find ample resources, tutorials, and forums to help you make the most of NixOS.
In terms of performance, NixOS shines brightly. Its lightweight design and efficient resource management ensure snappy responsiveness even on older hardware. Additionally, NixOS's minimalistic approach to system services means that unnecessary bloat is kept to a minimum, resulting in a streamlined and efficient computing experience.
Security is also a top priority for NixOS. With built-in features such as sandboxing and containerization, users can rest assured knowing that their system is protected against potential threats and vulnerabilities. Additionally, NixOS's transparent and auditable package management system ensures that only trusted and verified software makes its way onto your system.
Overall, NixOS is a game-changer in the world of Linux distributions. Its innovative approach to package management, declarative system configuration, and emphasis on security and performance make it a top choice for power users and enthusiasts alike. If you're looking for a stable, reliable, and cutting-edge operating system, look no further than NixOS. With its 10/10 rating, it's clear that NixOS is truly in a league of its own on DistroWatch.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-01-21
Votes: 7
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There's a rather large learning curve, learning a whole new way of configuring linux. The documentation at times is pretty poor. It was a lot of trial and error getting the config working well. But once setup it works great, and is reproducible. It is extremely easy getting all the programs you want setup and installed from the get go. I like how you can easily roll the system back, in case one of my changes had unpredictable outcomes. Keeping everything up to date is easy and no thought goes into it. It's not for beginners or for people not willing to do things in a whole new way. But it works well once it's setup.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2024-01-07
Votes: 14
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This is a really great distro.
My main problem with other distros is that you can break them and they usually break at the worst time possible, resulting in time wasted on just fixing stuff. With NixOS that isn't really a problem. Since everything is in a config, you can simply rollback to a previous version of a config and BAM, just like that you have reverted a breaking change. Also the config helps you remember what changes you have made, which you can then later share and they will work for other.
There is a bit of a learning curve, although for me it wasn't a lot of hassle.
Although I do have one criticism for NixOS. Not all apps are working (example .deb apps or snap apps), which is not suitable for me to install on a work laptop (since some crucial work apps are only made for ubuntu and fefora) and additionally, since you should make everything through a config, this can sometimes take a lot longer since some niche information may be difficult to find.
All in all, I would still recommend NixOS. The fact that you can have everything in a config file makes it a lot easier to maintain than any other distro. No accidental system breaks and you will not forget what changes you have made.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-12-16
Votes: 33
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Finally, no more distro hopping.
I have finally found a distrobution that suits me perfectly. Not only it allows me to use the computer how I want it, but I can reproduce the same system in case I have to reinstall, which is so rare since I have daily droven this for 5 months, which is half the time I have daily droven Linux as a whole.
Literally no other distro works for me, Debian, adding PPAs are a nightmare, Arch sounded like the best distro by many people, and I gave it a try, but I realized it broke very often, due to me as I would occasionally configure something incorrectly. I continously switched between the two and ever switched back to Windows 10 LTSC (My Laptop supports 11, but I hate 11, therefore the reason I switched to Linux) because I did not know which Linux distro suited me, untill NixOS started trending, but still I did not know how good the distro would be untill I gave it a try.
And literally after switching I never looked back, I never reinstalled my system after the switch because it was rock solid and I could easily install whatever I wanted and I could reproduce my whole system.
Literally I don't understand why this distro is now looked down upon, it is the best Linux distro in my opinion, it like others has a laerning curve, but after you make that perfect configuration, you will never go back to cany other distro or Windows 10/11 (11 and regular Windows 10 22H2 suck so much)
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-11-29
Votes: 10
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A very promising and unlike any other operating system. It has many advantages, especially for the corporate sector.
It has many innovative features that most other systems do not have.
The system is characterized by reliability, root is mounted (ro), all programs are executed in a sandbox, ease of rolling back the state after an update. The most important thing is declarative builds and deployments. It supports a lot of programs, even more than Arch and AUR. And if that's not enough, there is Flatpak and AppImage. This system is not for beginners.
I have switched all my laptops and servers to NixOS.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 6
Date: 2023-11-27
Votes: 10
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I really really really wanted it to work for me. I've been using their package manager on Debian for quite a while, and it's been working to perfection, which made me very excited to try it.
And then the problems started…
Setting a fully qualified domain name didn't work, but that's okay. No hard feelings. I can live without it.
Mullvad VPN client didn't work at all. I was going to try and run it containerized but didn't get to it on time because of the other problems I had.
Firefox was crashing like crazy. Maybe one of the extensions was at fault? It would take time and effort to figure this out, so temporarily I switched to Firefox ESR.
Dropbox was complaining I was using an outdated version. The workaround was to use flatpak. I had enough of flatpak on Debian and wanted to get rid of it. That's why I chose NixOS… which forced me to use flatpak. Ugh!
And then came the final drop: there was no way I could make jupyter lab work. It is a requirement for me. I tried everything, all to no avail, so sadly enough, I had to give up on it.
I'm reinstalling Debian and the Nix package manager. Sorry, NixOS…
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-10-08
Votes: 18
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NixOS is a flavour of Linux that will ingratiate some and infuriate others.
If "purely functional" is meaningful to you, then this is clearly the right choice.
Even if it doesn't, this could be a great distribution. There are no "what do I have installed" or "why are all the config files in different formats" or "how did I do that" questions. Your entire system configuration is defined in a single place and you simply tell your OS to work the way you specified. Gone are the days where you need to remember the format of a dozen different configuration files. Gone are the days when you don't know exactly how your computer is configured. Gone are the days when you can't get your computer reconfigured exactly how you had it before.
It's amazing.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-09-25
Votes: 11
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This distro... works. No bug, no lag, gigantic repo.
It may seem trivial to say that, but I always encountered bugs or lags in my distrohopping journey : fedora is quite flashy, but bugs and crashes... Ubuntu has not, but Ubuntu is laggy to me... Arch is the solution... but Arch seems fragile if not maintained enough... so Manjaro ? No Manjaro can break anytime... so Debian ? Too old...
I was never satisfied... until NixOS.
Even if you're not interested in the technology behind (read-only, reproducibility, security, etc.), when the main difficulty is behind (the first configuration, Nix devs you should focus on that)... this becomes a quasi no-brain distro.
I want to test "ncdu" I did not know ? Hop : nix-shell -p ncdu and BIM.
It seems great ? Ok : I add ncdu in my environment.systemPackages and it will ALWAYS be there, even if I change my PC and install NixOS on a new one...
So... try it.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-09-06
Votes: 8
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Spanning a tech career over 22 years using macOS to Gentoo I am thrilled to be using NixOS and its's capabilities on all my devices and in all respects I possibly can. It's a distro, it's a package manager, it's a language. I don't even want to compare it to other linux distros because it is simply in a class of its own (not to diminish other OSes and PMs). I am now learning something new every day, taking notes and to reiterate excited about this amazing technology and interested in how the future of compute and human / computer interaction could be changed as this project progresses. Purely Functional.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-08-24
Votes: 8
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NixOS is the only system I'm willing to stick with because of its reproducibility, declarative nature, and composability.
With declarative configuration, you can manage your entire system just like managing code.
With reproducibility, you no longer have to deal with strange environment differences (not absolute, but these issues are significantly reduced).
With composability, you can manage your configuration in a modular way. This is especially effective when you need to manage multiple computers because you no longer have to synchronize configurations between different machines by copying them. Instead, you can extract their common parts for unified maintenance and individually maintain the differing parts. Finally, you can combine the different parts, just as you would do when writing any other code.
Using NixOS allows me to continuously improve my skills, and it provides me with a high ceiling, making it feel like second nature to use. In this regard, it's very similar to tools like Vim, Emacs, and Git. If you also enjoy these tools and have experience with functional programming languages, there's a good chance you'll also appreciate NixOS.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-08-16
Votes: 13
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NixOS: A Funky Dive into Linux's Future
Hey there, tech adventurers! Ready to take a whirlwind tour through the neon-lit alleyways of NixOS? Buckle up, 'cause we're diving into an OS that's not just playing by the rules – it's rewriting them.
**Cool Cats of NixOS**
1. **Package Party**: Ever been trapped in dependency limbo? NixOS says bye-bye to that mess. Their package game is like an ultra-chic closet where software can't fight over the spotlight. Multiple versions? No sweat.
2. **Epic Configs**: Kiss your config chaos goodbye! NixOS lets you boss your system around with a slick language. No need to beg text files for mercy – just declare what you want and bam! It's a modern art masterpiece.
3. **Rollback Ready**: Worried about stepping on the wrong upgrade toes? NixOS has your back. It's like an "undo" button for your system. Say goodbye to the days of regret and embrace the zen of easy rollbacks.
**Speed Bumps on the Groove**
1. **Funky Fresh**: Hold onto your hat – NixOS ain't your grandpa's Linux. It's got a style all its own, and that means a bit of a learning curve. If you're a noob, be ready to spin your wheels a bit.
2. **Lonely Road**: NixOS is forging ahead, but the trail might be a bit quieter. Finding help might mean digging a little deeper. If you're used to a bustling crowd, this might feel like a solo dance.
But hey, ain't no party like a NixOS party! If you're down to dance to a different beat, this OS is like that underground club where you discover the next big thing before everyone else catches on. Neon lights, futuristic vibes – NixOS isn't just an OS, it's a state of mind. Whether you're a coding guru or just dipping your toes into Linux waters, this is one spin you won't forget.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-08-03
Votes: 5
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Previously tumbleweed was my go to distro, I thought no other distro would ever be good enough or unique enough to make me switch, but nixos is that distro, its very unique, its immutable but unlike many other immutable distro's you can change basically everything about it, you're not just locked into gnome or plasma, or whatever software the distro maintainers give you, if you don't want a full desktop environment and you want to use just a window manager instead then you can, you can even install both and pick and choose what to boot into and not have any of the software from the desktop environment show up when you're in the window manager.
You can even install their unstable rolling release along side their stable fixed release and pick and choose what to boot into, so you can literally run the fixed release and the rolling release of the same distro on the same PC, unlike pretty much every other distro where you have to choose if you want to run either a fixed release or a stable release, so there's no risk when updating or running unstable because you can just boot back into your previous stable version just as easy as it is to boot into an older kernel in the grub menu, you can also install different versions of the same software, all your configs are stored in one or two files, so its a piece of cake to reinstall your system to exactly how it was before, you can even save different config files for different desktops or window managers.
It does require a learning curve if you like to tinker though, and documentation is lacking in some areas, but apart from that its awesome, I recently put nixos on my mothers two laptops because one of them broke when I upgraded debian bullseye to bookworm, now I don't have to worry about an upgrade breaking the system, its kind of like having btrfs snapshots without having to run btrfs.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-30
Votes: 11
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NixOS is an absolute game-changer! Unparalleled stability and reliability at the cutting edge. The Nix package manager ensures seamless software management and rollbacks. With an amazing community, ultimate customization, and top-notch security, it's the best Linux distro out there! Don't miss out!
NixOS offers deterministic goodness like no other! Thanks to its innovative Nix package manager, you can rest assured that your system will remain consistent and reproducible across installations and updates. This means no more unexpected surprises or conflicts, making NixOS an absolute joy to use. Say goodbye to dependency headaches and embrace a world of predictable, reliable computing bliss!
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-21
Votes: 8
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Among the Linux distributions I've used so far, NixOS is by far the best. It has all the features I've been looking for and couldn't find before. Linux means freedom to me. I'm not afraid of making mistakes with NixOS, and that makes me feel even more free. I used to frequently switch distributions, but now I believe I will spend many years with NixOS.
Give NixOS a chance without a doubt, you won't regret it. Perhaps you, too, will find what you have been searching for, just like I did for years.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-15
Votes: 4
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Yes, it is superb as an OS and not only that.
From my point of view it is the most versatile operating system. It is so well built from the architectural stage that it competes with the very powerful operating systems of the past and present.
Traditional Windows and UNIX operating systems do not have this paradigm, I wish they did.
Here we are talking about the reproduction of things; you can quickly have a system prepared with everything you had 20 years ago, so that you can feel the experience from then at least from time to time.
You can go ahead with the updates without worrying. if you compare the operating systems Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat, AlmaLinux, Fedora, CentOS, Arch Linux and others with NixOS. You will always have a broken OS from time to time, due to incompatibilities; which does not happen with NixOS.
We don't like things that don't work and are broken!
Notice for the other Linux operating systems, it should improve the user experience and configuration.
You have your own build system, which gives you a lot of freedom to build things.
Even if it's hard to learn, it's worth it. you know why it's worth it, because you're a programmer and you can learn new and beautiful things in this life.
A powerful system that can be customized.
You can go back in time to boot for the configuration you want, which gives you a fantastic experience.
You can have multiple versions of the same program with small changes made by you; just slightly modifying some derivatives.
You can go to different configuration branches to experience old and new things or complicated hardware architectures.
You can have what you want with this operating system. Because this OS preserves the Linux philosophy; you to be the master of the operating system, and the system to do exactly what you want.
The UX/DX experience is quite good. A reliable system with documentation full of examples.
Come on Linux community, let's make this operating system a flagship operating system.
I want this operating system to be very attractive like Android, to be used by many people, to have many AI and Blockchain capabilities.
From my point of view it is an operating system from the future.
And I will always use it from now on.
Thank you to the Nix community, for what achievements you have had, have and will have.
I will stay with you.
I wish that whoever reads this note, will come back here again and share this further.
The future is a phoenix bird.
IN - 07.2023 :)
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-07-06
Votes: 0
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Has been a rock solid distro for me. Has a installer these days but to use you have to learn the nixos language to make use of nix. If I want to setup dev env I have to read more.
Their wiki and the search for packages often get you the rest of the way to your goal.
Their stable repo is nice if you just like to have two major releases per year. And minimize the update cycles.
Nix has had more prebuilt kernels then arch repo, I think there is enough good software without adding anything.
I use some flatpaks for steam and games, and I got what I need.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-07-01
Votes: 2
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this is a good distro to use. This distro has multiuser package management (system packages, system wide local packages, and user wide local packages) ability to roll back with ease, it is immutable, and it is quite up to date. There are also tons of packages for nixos. NVIDIA works great on nixos, broadcom wifi drivers work great on nixos, flatpaks work great on nixos (there is a way to fix the mouse icon issue in flatpaks) You also don't have to deal with dependency hell on nixos, you can have multiple versions, each user can have its own packages without needing root access, and it is a very reliable linux distro.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 23.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-06-30
Votes: 0
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I was afraid to use NixOS because it is considered an advanced distro, but the installation was smooth thanks to the Calam installer. I have been using it for a week now, and the results are satisfactory. Just one problem, I have had difficulty integrating NixOS with the use of another package manager like PIP. I liked this new paradigm of handling packages and configurations. I always considered version control and dependency management a mess in Linux. NixOS provides a system reordering. Furthermore, it allows me to better plan my configurations and have confidence in its stability in the long term.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-06-28
Votes: 3
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I'm currently using EndeavourOS and NixOS is currently on everyone's lips, so I thought I'd have a look for myself. The installation went smoothly, because there is a graphical installer, which as you are used to, the basics can be configured (language, user, DE, partitioning, ...). When I was then booted I wanted to build and install my system via the declarative config file of nix of course. This takes longer than usual, but once you have created this file, you can reuse it for every installation. For startup and important info I used the "Getting Started With NixOS" guide from It's FOSS, I can recommend it to anyone switching over.
And what can I say, I haven't used it for very long, so I can't say anything about stability yet, but so far I like it very much and I am considering using it as a daily driver.
The only criticism I can think of so far is that if you don't know NixOS at all, you won't get any help when starting the OS. You have to look for it yourself. But since this is an advanced distro, I think that's ok.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-06-25
Votes: 4
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By far paradigm shifting and certainly the future of operating systems.
No more needing to reinstall your OS each 2 years or fixing package/lib incompatibility issues!.
Despite the documentation problem everyone in the community says, I believe that tooling should be more consistent with more guides and examples on how to use it and which benefits users can gain from that, I say that because the community is split to those who use flakes a long with nix commands, and those who don´t, which makes kinda complicated to wrap things in your head.
Language is not perfect but far more cool and productive than using yaml, tooling is not perfect but with time it will improve a lot (see Nix language server, LSPs formatters, NixOps lorri home manager and et cetera...).
Community is getting larger and larger and more distros are adopting the idea of an immutable operating system, it seems that things are getting better.
For those who are beginning right now, take your time and don't rush to do all things once at a time, nix sure has a lot of capabilities but it's important to understand why it's so good. I recommend reading a blog series that helped me (even tho I use it a long time ago) to understand some key concepts I didn't understand before, it's called "Nix from First Principles: Flake Edition" from Tony Finn
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Project: NixOS
Version: 21.11
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-06-02
Votes: 12
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I have been using linux systems for 10 years. Basically fedora, arhlinux, debian, opesuse, dozens of their various derivatives. I even ventured into the territory of freebsd and gentoo. I am an engineer and self-taught in the world of IT, and with that I see the greatness of nixos. I installed it for the first time a few weeks ago. Getting the basic system up and running doesn't require a lot of effort, but it's just the surface and moving on requires hard learning, especially from those who don't have programming experience. The cleanliness, lightness, flexibility and stability of the system are impressive compared to traditional gnu/linux solutions. You get a special thrill when you work with it, on it. I appreciate that it is resource-based, without dependency chaos, and creative. These directly and indirectly free up a lot of development energy, especially if there will already be a large number of automated modules available to users on a particular topic. I find the integration of non-nix packages particularly problematic. By simplifying this, you can go a long way. It has a bright future. I hope it will not be contaminated with flatpak and snaps technologies and will remain consistent.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-05-02
Votes: 8
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Once you start to understand it and liking it, you don't want to leave the Nix ecosystem.
Its most unique feature: the feeling of freedom it provides, allowing users to FEARLESSLY modify configurations without risking system damage.
With the rollback feature, you return to a previous working state as easily as selecting one of your previous NixOS "generation.". That's it!
Although there's a learning curve to Nix language, for me the key is to start simple and build upon it gradually.
The most complex type, a set, (think of it a some named fields containing a value that is either a string, an interger, a version number, a url, a function... or again a set) is used super-frequently, but understanding it makes mastering the Nix language and ecosystem really achievable.
As you become familiar with it (just play with it regularly), you'll realize Nix Language is DIFFERENT, not DIFFICULT.
With my last laptop I began using Ubuntu for convenience, but soon installed the Nix package manager due to its advantages in development. Eventually, I re-installed NixOS in dual boot and haven't looked back since. Now, I even consider only using Ubuntu as containers within NixOS.
In summary, NixOS offers an unparalleled sense of freedom and flexibility, making it a worthwhile endeavor for those willing to learn its unique language.
Last advice for novices: Dont mistake Nix Language syntax with C/Java/Javascript. Here curly braces and semi-colons means a set, it's TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Indeed it is so much SIMPLER... but hey... different...
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-04-08
Votes: 7
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A bit of a learning curve, but once you get your head around it, it's by far the most exciting, promising and technically sound distro you'll ever use.
You are not convinced? Try nix-shell -p supertuxkart and play the game without installing it permanently on your system!
Still not sure? Then copy your configuaration.nix file from your github repository and reproduce your system to any computer you like.
And the list goes on... I haven't even touched on the experimental features, such as flakes!
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.11
Rating: 7
Date: 2023-04-01
Votes: 3
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This is an extreme operating system that I want to love. I'm grateful it exists. I really like the nix package manager. That said, unless you have already made the investment, you are going to spend a lot more time than you want to learning how to work around NixOS. In many respects it is NOT gnu/linux, despite meeting the criteria when you look at the kernel and software running on it. That is because it bucks generations of conventions when it comes to how you install and run software. NixOS follows a radical philosophy of dependency management and makes heavy use of linking to create virtual environments. There is no opt-out of this, the operating system is really built this way.
Definitely worth installing on a second machine or as dual boot if you are interested in a long road of learning. Definitely not worth installing as your primary OS if you have used other operating systems (intentionally left broad: eg, Ubuntu, Windows, Gentoo, iOS) before and want something you understand and can use.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.11
Rating: 10
Date: 2023-03-01
Votes: 17
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NixOS is a bit of a rabbit hole, but it's one that will make you wonder why every other distro isn't doing it this way!
The nix package manager is neat & worth checking out in it's own right, if you're not looking to completely revamp your entire system setup.
However, the real achievement by the Nix team is NixOS - I will never use another OS.
Having your entire system declared in a version-controlled file is obviously beneficial. Rollbacks allow for confident experimentation, knowing that bricking your system is really only bricking that *version* of your system, and can be reverted easily upon reboot. It's a tinkerer's dream OS.
It has a very steep learning curve, once you get into the realm of flakes & functions. However, your configuration.nix file really doesn't need all that. You can do perfectly fine with a single config file describing your whole system, from what file system & kernel to use all the way up to specific versions of user packages. Drop your laptop into your bathtub? You no longer have to spend a whole day getting your system back the way you like it. Just install nixos, git clone your config repo, & `nixos-install`. Done!
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.11
Rating: 9
Date: 2023-01-20
Votes: 8
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In my opinion, NixOS is a great OS. This is because NixOS, other than Guix, is the only OS that offers declarativity while still being good.
NixOS is very organized due to all your settings being inside files. For package installation, you add the package to a list inside a file.
However, with the new addition of Nix Flakes, everything becomes harder to install. Due to this, I give the OS a 9/10.
Also, this OS is pure preference. Even if the OS gets good reviews, you might not like it. Maybe you like immutability and automatic package and dependency management. Your choice. Personally, I like declarativity and package version management.
If you want to use NixOS, make sure to install home-manager. Otherwise Nix is kinda bad.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.11
Rating: 1
Date: 2022-12-06
Votes: 0
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Holy cow this is this bad. This is not for beginners. There is just way too much manual work with this one.
Not exactly certain what or who this is for. As a daily driver, no way.
With so many choices out there, this one is not even on my radar.
Straight away, had quite a few hardware issues which honestly was quite surprising.
Performance was also lacking. I suppose due to the hardware issues.
Tried the KDE edition which out of the box was missing Discover. There is no Software Center either.
Reminds me of EndevourOS which is equally terrible.
Sorry not for me.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-12-02
Votes: 9
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good, but room for improvement
And one day you will definitely sit in a puddle, because that stuff could broke something on your system.
In a generic distribution there is no any easy way to go through the issue, but in NixOS you will manage it by using only
one command "nixos-rebuild switch --rollback"! And that is it. This is like git in programming world:
your system in one stable state, you can look around, make experimental changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in that state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.
not really for beginners, but recommended
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-11-16
Votes: 17
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After a terrible learning curve, you begin to learn the power of NixOS : the system is quasi-indestructible and infinitely reproductible...
1. You destroyed something ? First, congratulations, it's difficult because everything is read-only. But no problem, just reboot to the previous version. Everything stays intact until you "collect-garbages" (a nix command).
2. You need Firefox with 1500 strange options and different ones for 150 different users ? No problem, when configured the first time, the next deployment are instantaneous. No need to re-set the settings every time you test something or add a new user.
Because your system AND users AND sysconfigs AND userconfigs AND applications AND apps configurations are declarative. A simple nixos-rebuild and there you go, a fresh new system, ready to use.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-10-22
Votes: 11
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To me, this is the end-all-be-all OS. It's the only OS I've encountered so far that allows *complete customization by configuration*. The fact that builds are reproducible means that I can have complete confidence that the OS will always work. If a build fails? Revert a version.
The only downside is that the learning curve is steep. But come to think of it, that's not the fault of the OS. That's caused by the mess of the current ecosystem that NixOS is (in my opinion) the only sane answer to.
Giving it a rating of 10 comes from the fact that my life as a developer and FOSS engineer has become massively more productive and straight-forward. Nix flakes are a gift to anyone working with software. Thanks!
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-25
Votes: 3
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Having spent a number of years with ArchLinux, over the last year or more I have moved to NixOS as my main driver for servers and notebooks. I also use it to compose docker images etc.
I like how the community shares their .dotfile configurations and how the makeup of the configurations is how you declaratively manage the system. It just feels much tidier than the imperative methods that are used in most desktop systems.
It takes a little of study to come to grips with the Nix language and the documentation could be better - but the community is excellent.
There might be the odd trade-off required when using proprietary packages that are not compiled for NixOS. I hear there are ways around that too, but not something that has bothered me enough yet to spend time to deal with it.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 8
Date: 2022-09-08
Votes: 5
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So I recently left the Windows world and hopped back into Linux, which I used to use a lot back between 2012-2015.
I have been distro-hopping like crazy for the last several weeks. I knew I wanted something more advanced than Ubuntu. The problem is that I am also a distro minimalist, meaning I want a naked, raw operating system. Something without any apps installed other than a desktop. I had remembered reading about NixOS years ago, but never gave it a try. I guess now was the time.
Here's what I appreciate about Nix. The graphical installer makes getting started easy. I love the simplicity and cleanness of managing the installed system. I personally do not like Firefox as much as I like Brave. Simply go into the configuration file, delete the line containing Firefox, and add Brave. Boom. Do a simple rebuild of the system, and your system now never even knew Firefox was installed.
Ironically, I chose to add apps using Flathub which also runs in a containerized manner, but does eliminate the need to edit the configuration file every time I want to add an app.
I don't like that Nix doesn't let you choose what file system to use at install time, at least with the auto format function. I also don't like that some of the most necessary commands are hidden away in documentation or on chat boards. For example, how do you update the packages? It isn't as obvious. Minor nitpickings, but I chose the KDE desktop, and there is a broken icon down in the lower left corner. I just deleted it.
I'm still learning about NixOS, but I feel like this is the system to hang with for the long term. Tons of power and flexibility. You have the option between a stable updates channel or a more rolling distro type of channel, called unstable. I would recommend this system strongly.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-09-04
Votes: 8
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I finally tried it out. The installer takes away some pressure, as I wasn't confident that I could jump in and set it all up correctly from scratch. Now that I had this base Gnome install though, I realised that the packager and config file setup are not at all as scary as I thought they would be. In fact, it's pretty easy to get your head around and just start building up your OS like you would do with any other distro. The packager is brilliant. It's fast and immensely powerful, and I haven't even delved into ad hoc shell environments and all that jazz yet. A lot of those tools are more geared towards developers anyway, which I'm not any more. And special heads-up for the documentation.. it's really, really good.
The default Gnome is great (I hope the other desktops available are as good as this). It's clean and it's stable and fast. It's the only distro apart from Ubuntu-based ones that automatically found and set up by Brother printer and scanner.
The amount of packages available is awesome as well. The whole thing feels like the stability of Debian with the cutting edge of Arch and the updated Gnome of Fedora. It's incredibly well thought-out. I hope to get my new 'built for linux' laptop soon. I'll be able to try out how easy it is to replicate my current setup on a new machine.
For anyone hesitating to try it out, thinking it might be too messy to deal with, I can assure you that it isn't. I highly recommend this distro.
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Project: NixOS
Version: unstable
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-08-18
Votes: 13
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There is a certain demographic that NixOS will appeal to, as is evident in the reviews here: expert users who used to distro-hop, always searching for something that works reliably for all their nontrivial needs. Many, myself included, end up settling on NixOS. In this review I'll try to outline why I think that is more of a pattern than a fluke.
NixOS strikes a very good balance between "it just works" and DIY:
"It just works":
- nixpkgs is the largest repository of Linux software in existence, both in number of packages and in number of up-to-date packages
- especially with the graphical installer, installing NixOS to a graphical system is as easy as with all other graphical distros
DIY:
- experimentation without fear of messing up the system (with rollbacks and GC) is rightfully in the spotlight
- Nix is source-based, so you can patch packages on the fly
- declarative configs mean that at the end of the day, all your hard work can be saved to version control, so it doesn't have to be done again, by you or anyone else
- a central configuration keeps it easy to remove cruft that invariably accumulates in imperative OSes
Many DIY folks try to reinvent a subset of NixOS through hand-crafted configs that copy and sync their dotfiles, install packages, etc. Nix formalises this into something easier to maintain and reason about.
The biggest barrier to entry is of course the steep learning curve. The only way to use NixOS is to learn the Nix expression language and surrounding idioms for building software. It takes about a year or so to attain proficiency, or about half that if you have someone helping you. But like with all foundational skills, it pays dividends in the long run.
The benefits of learning Nix:
- ability to build and run any software project with Nix, on any distro and even macOS
- ability to run software without installing it or any dependencies
- by learning how to use the system you also learn how to contribute to nixpkgs / NixOS itself, which is how it has become so large in the first place
- learning the functional paradigm makes you a better engineer overall
I don't expect that the configuration language will be abstracted away (e.g. by GUI) any time soon. But with improved documentation, the learning curve might become more approachable to the general audience. The community is exceptionally active and welcoming to contributions.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-08-15
Votes: 2
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I tried many of different Linux distributions before and was really happy to meet NixOS suddenly.
There is no doubt that the future of Linux World is NixOS.
In my opinion it will take not much time till NixOS becomes widely used around the whole planet.
IMHO the greatest feature of that distribution is "rollback" possibility. It is awesome.
Imagine that you have installed something that is not exactly you need, you forgotten to prune it
and kept going your searches. Once you've found it and of course you completely forgot about that previously installed
unneeded stuff. And one day you will definitely sit in a puddle, because that stuff could broke something on your system.
In a generic distribution there is no any easy way to go through the issue, but in NixOS you will manage it by using only
one command "nixos-rebuild switch --rollback"! And that is it. This is like git in programming world:
your system in one stable state, you can look around, make experimental changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in that state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.
I recommend it for everyone.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-07-07
Votes: 14
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Like many of the other reviewers, I have also used, with varying degrees of success and fidelity, many of the popular Linux distributions (Debian, Fedora, Centos, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, KDE Neon, Mint, Arch), as well as some of the underdogs now farther down the list as well. For the record, I probably used Gentoo/Funtoo the longest (c. 15 years), which I finally abandoned[1], but only after having learned a great deal about how Linux works, about its strengths as well as its weaknesses.
NixOS is by far the most interesting distribution I've used to date, and I think -- might be the future of the Linux desktop. Why? NixOS is, quite literally, an OS built completely around its package manager (Nix and the expression language that supports it). It appears to take aim at solving a key problem of most Linux distributions -- the fact that application software is developed and updated at varying speeds, and those applications use versions of key libraries, which themselves are developed independently and thus have their own production timelines, further complicated by the relentless advent of new hardware, and the leap-frogging between the various elements create inconsistencies (at times quite circular) that can become difficult to overcome (so-called dependency hell). This difficulty seems to me the key problem that NixOS targets, and by doing so places **application software** -- and the resulting experience users derive from it -- at the very core of everything.
Many reviews more than a year or so old speak of weakness in documentation. Although still not perfect, the depth and extent of documentation has evidently improved significantly in the meantime. The user group is still small, but growing and (at least in my experience) quite responsive. The installation itself demands only that you understand something about disk partitioning, and are able to customize an configuration file from a generic template to fit your needs. But the key parts are already there: to get a machine up and running is not necessarily a struggle. The struggle really comes later, in gaining a mastery of the Nix language sufficient to fully understand how the system really works, and how to use it create a development environment. This is where better documentation comes in. A key point, however, is that once a satisfactory `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix' file is obtained, a user could replicate this setup across many machines, making it possible to obtain a consistent desktop experience.
NixOS may not be for everyone, and understanding its functionality is not trivial, but such hurdles will also likely become less substantial with greater user adoption and deeper documentation. I feel it has tremendous potential, and the investment has been well worth it thus far for me. I'm very grateful to Distrowatch for showcasing it.
[1] Getting bogged down with one too many KDE-QT library issues, and recognizing I was spending far less time _using_ the system than I was recompiling it.
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 10
Date: 2022-06-15
Votes: 9
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I have installed most Linux distributions over the last 10 years, however, I have to admit that NixOS is definitely something unique.
I have this installed on my two laptops with quiet different specs running Gnome3 with a fresh install the memory used is around 650MB this is the lowest I have seen. This has enabled me to run NixOS on my old Dell that has only 2GB of ram and 32GB of emmc, on which it runs fast enough to be usable.
I have taken the config from that and used it on my other Dell that has 16GB of ram and a 500GB SSD, it flies but it made setting up the second machine really simple.
Pros: -
* Dead easy to install using the Calamares installer.
* Good choice of DEs.
* An opportunity to learn something new.
* Over 80000 packages available in the repository
Cons: -
* You do need to be comfortable with editing a config file, but once you get your head around the concept, you'll love NixOS
I am loving NixOS surprise yourself and give it a go!
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Project: NixOS
Version: 22.05
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-05-31
Votes: 8
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I installed nixos-gnome-22.05.342.a634c8f6c1f-x86_64-and even though it says Gnome, it offers several desktops. I chose Xfce. Everything went smooth. Only thing I miss is Synaptic. the nix-env is similar to apt-get, but itI is always better. to use a graphic too;.There are a few things missing from their repo, alacarte and aisleriot solitaire come to mind. I don't understand what being reproducible means. I have not experienced their community yet. This is my first day testing Nix. I think it shows promise.
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