Jow Forums uses a next-gen OS edition.
What is NixOS?
>NixOS is a GNU/Linux distro which improves the state of the art in system config management. In existing distros, actions such as upgrades are dangerous: upgrading a package can cause other packages to break, upgrading an entire system is less reliable than reinstalling from scratch, you can’t safely test what the results of a config change will be, you cannot easily undo changes, etc.
NixOS changes that
What features does NixOS have?
>Reliable & atomic upgrades
>Rollbacks
>Reproducible system configurations
>Safe to test changes
>Source-based model, with binaries
>Consistency [dependency upgrades also upgrade depending packages]
>Multi-user package management
>A unique configuration DSL
Read the NixOS manual
> nixos.org
Take your Nix pills
> nixos.org
Check out the source code
> github.com
> github.com
I've been using NixOS for ~2 years. I'm happy to answer questions and provide insight.
> NixOS uses systemd!
If this is a deal breaker, you can still use Nix as a package manager on a different distro. NixOS is not coupled too tightly to systemd, but right now it would be a significant effort to put in a new init/service system. There're a number of us that intend make NixOS support other service managers eventually.
> Nix includes proprietary software!
Just as package managers like portage or pacman, there are proprietary packages available, but it's up to the user to use the packages. Nix was built to have things work without breaking, not to win FSF points
> Does Nix support X/Y/Z?
Probably. NixOS supports common configurations, and some esoteric configurations. If something isn't available and you don't want to write a package, flatpak is an option, and pacman is in nixpkgs, so you can get binary packages. There's also many customized Nix configurations online in which to find custom packages and configuration insight