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?

  • Rikudou_SageA
    1•7 months ago

    nix-env is used to install packages in a similar way to apt or yum - you install a package, it gets downloaded and installed. This way of installing goes pretty much against the whole idea behind immutable systems.

    The clean way is to add a package to your configuration file (and reconstruct your OS from that), or use a nix-shell if you need the package only temporarily.

    • @tanja@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
      1•7 months ago

      Oh, ok

      So I should reinstall the OS every time I change my config?
      Is this like the “deployments” from rpm-ostree in Fedora Silverblue?

      • Rikudou_SageA
        1•7 months ago

        You just run sudo nixos-rebuild switch and it makes your system match whatever is in your configuration file (packages, services, hardware drivers, config files etc.).