So I’ve recently taken an interest in these three distros:
All of these offer something very interesting:
Access to (basically) all Linux-capable software, no matter from what repo.
Both NixOS and blendOS are based on config files, from which your system is basically derived from, and Vanilla OS uses a package manager apx to install from any given repo, regardless of distribution.
While I’ve looked into Fedora Silverblue, that distro is limited to only install Flatpaks (edit: no, not really), which is fine for “apps”, but seems to be more of a problem with managing system- and CLI tools.
I haven’t distro hopped yet, as I’m still on Manjaro GNOME on my devices.
What are your thoughts on the three distros mentioned above?
Which ones are the most interesting, and for what reasons?
Personally, I’m mostly interested in NixOS & blendOS, as I believe they may have more advantages compared to Arch;
What do you think?
What is your usecase?
This is the key question.
Daily driver;
Dev work is not specific enough. Pip is a nightmare because it just wanted to modify folders that were read only and you never know what it wants to do to your system. Your experience may vary depending on how much the language package manager assumes about your system. If you’re in a container, it will work perfectly, though
Firefox just works, and I installed Steam from nixpkgs and it worked after enabling a few settings. Then I just enabled Proton on every game and it works okay, with a few weird bugs sometimes (although I blame Gnome for messing up alt tabbing sometimes)
Is there something that attracts you to NixOS for that purpose?
I’ve got Nix OS running on one of my computers, and honestly, haven’t found it to be particularly notable for those usecases.
That’s very interesting 👀
Why did you choose NixOS?
Mostly to learn about it’s unique selling points.
I think it is very interesting in terms of the easy deployment of specific environments, and in terms of writing recipes for new packages.
Having said that, outside of these two rather niche areas for home use, I think it is rather unintuitive and offers no real advantages over more established players that offer a more polished experience, like Fedora for workstation and gaming use.
I, on the other hand, use it as a daily driver and find it very suitable for both.
It is suitable sure, I don’t dislike NixOS at all, which I why I continue to run it on one of my pcs. I like the concept that it employs.
I just do think it offers a less polished experience, that is significantly less intuitive than other workstation distros, for little to no gain, if you don’t need one of its specific usecases.
I have a similar use case on my laptop and love NixOS with hyprland