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submitted 3 months ago by aleq@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Title is quite self-explanatory, reason I wonder is because every now and then I think to myself "maybe distro X is good, maybe I should try it at some point", but then I think a bit more and realise it kind of doesn't make a difference - the only thing I feel kinda matters is rolling vs non-rolling release patterns.

My guiding principles when choosing distro are that I run arch on my desktop because it's what I'm used to (and AUR is nice to have), and Debian on servers because some people said it's good and I the non-rolling release gives me peace of mind that I don't have to update very often. But I could switch both of these out and I really don't think it would make a difference at all.

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[-] rutrum@programming.dev 24 points 3 months ago

NixOS. My primary reason for switching was wanting a single list of programs that I had installed. After using ubuntu for 5 years I just lost track of all the tools and versions of software that I had installed...and that didnt even count my laptop. Now all my machines have a single list of applications, and they are all in sync.

[-] hallettj@leminal.space 10 points 3 months ago

This is a big reason for me. Also because if anything breaks - even if my system becomes unbootable - I can select the previous generation from the boot menu, and everything is back to working.

It's very empowering, the combination of knowing that I won't irrevocably break things, and that I won't build up cruft from old packages and hand-edited config files. It's given me confidence to tinker more than I did in other distros.

[-] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 3 points 3 months ago

What does that mean? Like there is one calendar app?

[-] SqueakyBeaver 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

NixOS configuration is done entirely through code, so all of your packages are in a list (although that list can be spread across multiple files; it's a bit to explain)

I've found it can be easier to manage what you have installed, since you can just look at that list and go "oh, why do I still have xyz installed, idek what that does anymore"

I appreciate the way things are configured a lot, but I would not recommend it unless you really like coding and you have time to tinker. It's not too hard to get simple config setup, but I spiraled down a deep rabbit hole really quickly.

EDIT: If my comment for some reason persuaded you to use NixOS, I recommend you get a basic config setup before installing it. I'd also recommend you look at how annoying it can be to run dynamically-linked applications (i.e. you download a random executable off the Internet and try to run it, or you try to run something you downloaded with npm)

[-] JovialSodium@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

NixOS is a declarative distro. Meaning it you can declare pretty much every aspect of it from what software is installed to how the system is configured from a config file.

Using your calandar example, you can list Thunderbird (or whatever) as a package you want in the configuration and it will be installed. You can also use that same configuration on another machine and produce the same environment.

Relevant to the original point, since all your software is listed in a text file, you can easily see exactly what's installed.

[-] rutrum@programming.dev 4 points 3 months ago

Tinkering, really. I did a bunch of stuff with wine and virtualization and troubleshooted across versions. One time I manually updated the version of sqlite in python's std lib to be a newer version. I picked a non LTS kernel once. All these things compounded and bloated my system. And when I went to do clean up, I didnt have a record of exactly everything I installed, what I used and what I didnt. It was guesswork to clean up my disk or even remember the tools I used to get a project working.

This is solved with declarative configuration, which is the basis of NixOS. I believe VanillaOS 2 has something similar. Likewise, this is one the great benefits of docker, vagrant, ansible, etc.

this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
171 points (100.0% liked)

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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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