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Arch or NixOS? (self.linux)
submitted 1 year ago by CatLikeLemming to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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

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

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

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[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

NixOS's documentation is dog. It's not absolute dog, but it's dog. The learning curve is brutal.

But... the (mostly) declarative management is its strongest feature. It's very solid and you can easily unfuck you system if you haven't done stuff like mess with partitions or delete files manually.

If NixOS had better documentation and GUI to manage the system, it would be a no-brainer, but unfortunately, it is about 5-10 years away from that. The community is very top heavy, but it's easy to just do your own stuff.

this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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