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.
Complete with home manager, flakes, build server and automated deployments, the whole lot on machines from compute stick, gaming rig, hell even a surface. I have never had more free time than compared to arch. updates & config drift are no longer anything I worry about. Save so much time on rebuilds & customisations.
Nixos users never recommend it for new users. I always recommend mint or Ubuntu depending on the person and what they are used to. Seasoned Linux users i don’t even recommend it unless they have basic programming skills.
After that, bring it on, stick through the learning curve, you dont need the documentation. I only needed it at the start for a short period until it clicked and I figured it out. the repo and search has more than enough. In the repo you will find community builds and configs for a wide variety of hardware.
I’m not advanced, just a distrohopper for fun :-) but NixOs seemed excellent, you install like an other os, open the config file and write a list of what you want installed, rebuild and it’s all there. Then use it just like any other distro. That seems a good experience to me and if you are just a simple desktop user like me what else would you ever need to do? Am I right that all the homemanager and flakes business is optional and for people with more complicated requirements?
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.
For most people though yeah, Debian is rock solid, only went arch on my desktop for nvidia drivers (and HDR), archinstall really simplifies installing it.
Arch and Debian wikis are both amazing sources of information, highly recommend for any distro.
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.
I wish. People recommend Arch to beginners all the time. And then wonder why there’s so many “Linux is too hard” comments everywhere
Arch isn’t necessarily hard. It just is unstable plus it encourages dated ways of doing things.
Those make it hard
And it just seems towering overall with the insane egos of some Arch users on forums. It’s a good distro, just setting it up feels so tiring.
Its weird because Gentoo is actually more involved but the community seems to have none of the ego issues.
I use Nixos BTW.
And I can’t recommend it to anyone. Not even veterans.
I can only say if you like souls like games nixos might be your thing…
Doubt, highly doubt it.
I use nixos btw
Complete with home manager, flakes, build server and automated deployments, the whole lot on machines from compute stick, gaming rig, hell even a surface. I have never had more free time than compared to arch. updates & config drift are no longer anything I worry about. Save so much time on rebuilds & customisations.
Nixos users never recommend it for new users. I always recommend mint or Ubuntu depending on the person and what they are used to. Seasoned Linux users i don’t even recommend it unless they have basic programming skills.
After that, bring it on, stick through the learning curve, you dont need the documentation. I only needed it at the start for a short period until it clicked and I figured it out. the repo and search has more than enough. In the repo you will find community builds and configs for a wide variety of hardware.
I’m not advanced, just a distrohopper for fun :-) but NixOs seemed excellent, you install like an other os, open the config file and write a list of what you want installed, rebuild and it’s all there. Then use it just like any other distro. That seems a good experience to me and if you are just a simple desktop user like me what else would you ever need to do? Am I right that all the homemanager and flakes business is optional and for people with more complicated requirements?
Lol I’ve been considering trying it and that might push me per the edge. The self hate is strong xD
If you do, this website is very helpful: https://search.nixos.org/options
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.
Weird way to spell EndeavorOS
EndeavorOS? Yay!
With the missing ‘U’? I know, right? But it’s not weird; it’s just American, so it rewrites its history.
For most people though yeah, Debian is rock solid, only went arch on my desktop for nvidia drivers (and HDR), archinstall really simplifies installing it.
Arch and Debian wikis are both amazing sources of information, highly recommend for any distro.