this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
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I didn't need to learn a programming language to install Arch btw. I'd definitely agree Nix is an unnecessary complication for very little gain for the average user.
Well, you don't need to learn nix as a programming language for a simple installation, you can use it like a slightly different json, which the
configuration.nixpart was about. You can get the reproducibility aspect from just that, so I wouldn't say you get no benefits at all without learning the language.There are more disadvantages (like time required to rebuild because you added a single package), so Arch is the better choice depending on preferences. Arch is a very good traditional distribution in my opinion, can't go wrong with it
No no, there isn't "no benefit". There's just very little gain, compared to the effort. The average Linux user definitely will not care about reproducibility. 😅 So the effort required to either add Nix stuff to an existing distro or install NixOS itself will just be wasted effort for most people, I imagine. Myself included.
As a power user, I'm still not interested. Chezmoi serves me more than well to sync between my work laptop and my main desktop PC, because I'm running Arch on both systems and I still haven't had the need to reproduce a system in over a decade with Arch. 🥰 So stable.
But yeah if you reinstall frequently or manage a lot of machines daily then it might be worth looking into. 👌