How often do you hop distros?

3 years ago by fiddlestix to c/linux

Just curious to see what people are up to. I've been using Nixos for a while. It's fabulous and I have absolutely no reason to switch, but part of me is itching to hop to Debian or maybe OpenSUSE. How about you?

load all comments

xnasero 1 point 3 years ago

I switched from NixOS mainly cause there is no saint way to use my dotfiles except to adapt homemanager or the like.

For now I use my own OS based on Fedora Silverblue

https://github.com/SimonWoodtli/cloud-os

save

path: 0 3724704, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 3

philm 2 points 3 years ago

Interesting.

I have settled with NixOS+home-manager. It got quite a bit better over the last 3 1/2 years.

After learning and understanding all the quirks of NixOS, I've got a super nicely configured system, that just gets better over time, not comparable to a(ny) different distro I know of (they kinda degrade after time IME). I really like the way I can compose all my configuration via functions in modules and reuse relevant stuff on different servers and desktops I use (via flakes), always with the same up-to-date configuration.

save

path: 0 3724704 3729123, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 2

xnasero 1 point 3 years ago

Don't get me wrong I really like Nix. But like you said the learning curve is steep. And just learning the basics including flakes for instant setup is not enough. Because all your config files gotta be rewritten which is a lot of work and nix specific knowlege to aqquire. If you went through it I can totally see the benefit.

However for me personally it makes more sense to use tools that have wide adaption, such as OCI images and CI/CD to buid the image. My thought: Using Docker/Containerfiles is way more adapted by the industry so people already know how to use that. Nix on the otherhand has to not only fight against the default way UNIX systems are configured, but also do that with brand new tools.

I agree all distros are at some point breaking it's just the nature of any OS. That's why the nix paradigm or immutable OS paradigm is far superior and the future.

save

path: 0 3724704 3729123 3748710, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 1