I mean isn't it accepted that NixOS is a terrible pick for a beginner, especially a non-technical one? I feel like even the Nix community doesn't recommend the distro to complete beginners.
this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
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I really wish everyone thought like that, but I still see people recommending Nix, Arch, Void⦠and some go the ideological route and start recommending systemd-less only like Artix or ranting against anything that uses Flatpak. Those discussions can get messy, and they always alienate the person who asked. Unfortunately those with ideological reasons are always the loudest and present in basically every "Beginner's Help" group.
I wouldn't recommend vanilla Arch only because of the installation process. CachyOS that simplifies it is an extremely good pick for a person who already knows what a computer is, but wants to try a proper OS.
Arch mostly got it's reputation in the early days. Today some things are a lot easier to do on Arch than on other distros, especially because AUR exists. Also, it built one of the best wikis over all that time.
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I have this exact situation with my wife's work laptop, which can't upgrade to windows 11. The requirements are pretty simple, something that runs Chrome and Dropbox as well as Microsoft Office 2007.
I'm going with Mint Cinnamon for her (I use arch & kde btw) - was pleasantly surprised to see Dropbox now has Linux support actually, haven't looked at it for years!
Almost everything she uses her computer for runs in Chrome.
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Documentation? For Nix? Yeah right.
Did you know that the suffix for nix documentation files is, coincidentally, .nix?
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I use Alpine, tbh I dont see why I should learn an entire programming language just for a distro
Alpine just feels like everything on my system is there for a reason (and somehow makes arch feel "bloated") so I 100% understand wanting a full config file for everything on your system. But DAMN THE DOCS SUCK. Also NixOS locks you into systemd...
I have an old Laptop with a second gen i3 and 4gb of ram. Alpine runs very smoothly with Sway.
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I use arch btw
I really love this image for this, that expression combo is perfection.
definetly! do you know what anime that is?
Chatlotte (2015)
I have an old MacBook for 2012, can barely open terminal, installed Pop!_OS, and I love it!
Am I a terrible person?
Pop!_OS has been my go to for years now. Always been so reliable and easy to use. This was the distro which kept me from going back to Windows
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I have MacBook pro from 2011 and it runs Plasma fine. It has 16GB of memory, though.
I've got an old Dell XPS system from 2010 with a Core i7 970 in it that runs Mint perfectly well.
Nah, you're killing it.
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sips coffee from Alpine land
At least they aren't trying to get Steam to work on Kali.
Thatβs surprisingly easy.
Big nix fan here, I love being able to define my system from a couple configuration files and not scrounging around the file system for the right dot file
And also it let's you do crazy things that would be impossible in other imperative distros tho.
I am thinking about root-on-tmpfs, conditional configuration and doing all sorts of crazy things with packages while remaining manageable.
It is simply another whole tier.
Definitely solves more problems than it creates! /s
I swear, I've only recommended it to one newbie, and they were an engineer! I had a reason!
Hilarious that this is the new norm, though. NixOS is so not typical at all. Arch is more normal at this point.
@Natanox Seems like NixOS replaced Arch as both a local extremist cult and the most effective newbie repellent.
What's funny to me here is that, as a long time Arch user, I have been considering switching to NixOS. One of the most terrifying thoughts to me is that after using the same Arch install for 2 years I will spend ages trying to recreate it if I ever have to. Oh, that and Nix letting you test packages seems like a cool feature.
The nice thing is that NixOS will keep your setup and all your tweaks if you ever need to reinstall. It's designed to solve that exact problem.
One way of switching over would be to carry over your homedir and just starting with migrating packages and config as a first step.
I am about to switch away from arch that I installed 5 years ago. It's a daunting thought isn't it?
I've been on arch around a year now and also considered the jump to NixOS. I was actually dual booting it with arch for awhile and I found pretty quickly that the shit documentation was a huge turn off for me. I ended up nuking the nix partition and reclaiming it for arch.
That and the need to learn a bespoke, weird programming language that will only ever be useful for this one thing have really turned me off of that distro.
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This is my biggest issue. I am utterly spoiled to the exquisiteness that is Arch's Wiki...
I mean the Arch wiki mostly works on NixOS too. The problem with NixOS documentation is that there aren't many examples for the Nix language itself.
What is the Nix language like?
If Haskell and json had a baby
Hmm, that sounds more like dhall
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βArchβ they just need to read the newsletter before updating.
Before upgrading, users are expected to visit theΒ Arch Linux home pageΒ to check the latest news, or alternatively subscribe to theΒ RSS feedΒ or theΒ arch-announce mailing list. When updates require out-of-the-ordinary user intervention (more than what can be handled simply by following the instructions given byΒ pacman), an appropriate news post will be made.
alias yay="yay -Pw; yay"
Today I learned, thanks.
"Gentoo" because fuck you personally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_From_Scratch
Linux From Scratch (LFS) is a type of a Linux installation and the name of a book written by Gerard Beekmans, and as of May 2021, mainly maintained by Bruce Dubbs. The book gives readers instructions on how to build a Linux system from source. The book is available freely from the Linux From Scratch site.
LWN.net reviewed LFS in 2004:[19]
Linux From Scratch is a wonderful project. It should become a compulsory reading material for all Linux training courses, and something that every Linux enthusiast should complete at least once. This would also create another interesting side effect: people who tend to be quick in expressing dissatisfaction on the distributions' mailing lists and forums would probably show a lot more respect for the developers. Installing a ready-made distribution is a trivial task. Building up a set of 4 CDs containing a stable, secure and reliable operating system, plus thousands of applications, is most definitely not.
This just reminds me of my first experience with Linux in the late 90βs. Yes they had installers that got the base system working, but then you had to compile so much.
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