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The Curse of NixOS

I’ve used NixOS as the only OS on my laptop for around three years at this point. Installing it has felt sort of like a curse: on the one hand, it’s so clearly the only operating system that actually gets how package management should be done. After using it, I can’t go back to anything else. One the other hand, it’s extremely complicated constantly changing software that requires configuration with the second-worst homegrown config programming language I’ve ever used1.

I don’t think that NixOS is the future, but I do absolutely think that the ideas in it are, so I want to write about what I think it gets right and what it gets wrong, in the hopes that other projects can take note. As such, this post will not assume knowledge of NixOS — if you’ve used NixOS significantly, there probably isn’t anything new in here for you.

Read in full here:

https://blog.wesleyac.com/posts/the-curse-of-nixos

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