this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Isn't nix mostly for multi-system install? I did the nix thing a few years ago, spent a month on the config, and then never needed it again. Personally, I don't see a use-case for single desktop installation ;)
I use multiple systems and even I feel NixOS is overkill, especially with their confusing and sometimes incomplete documentation.
On the other hand, Nix the package manager has been fantastic - especially if you're on an immutable OS, or running some ancient "stable" distro - you can get all the packages you want, without breaking your system - and no need to learn the Nix language and write convoluted config files.
I'm running nix on my PC turned server, and there's definitely a lot of advantages...I highly recommend it for people who can pick up languages easily and prefer fixing a problem once by brute force trial and error.
Doing easy things is much harder, but doing hard things can be laughably easy
I probably wouldn't pick it as-is for my primary PC, but for a server? Amazing.
I guess you like to waste a whole day getting your machine back to the exact old configuration then.