If you want to be even more bleeding edge, you can import the latest kernel from nixos-unstable. And if for whatever reason you feel like you need to have an alternative kernel/system configuration readily available, there’s specializations.

are you on nix? i read good things but need to understand how to configure/build an OS via human readable text files. Pretty much just uncommenting what you need as per some YT tutorials i watched

One line in the config and you're tracking the newest stable family from now on. That's the part of NixOS I find a little magical. Hope 7.3 treats your hardware well. I'm on Omarchy so I mostly just ride whatever Arch ships, and it's fun seeing how the other side handles it.

Yeah, that's something I do not want to do. I do not want to start importing unstable software. I see no problem with new, but I do not want to go as far as Bleeding Edge.

yep, I am on NixOS. This is actually my second time trying it. I tried it about this time last year but bounced off of it because an application I needed did not have a package created for it and I didn't have the ability to build it from source. Now that application ships both a Flatpak version and an app image, so I can use it. NixOS is definitely not the easiest thing to learn, but from everything I've read or heard, once you get it set up the way you need, you'll never want to go back. NixOS is not an immutable distribution, but it has a lot of the benefits that are commonly associated with immutable systems.

I've never really considered using Arch, mainly because of the fact that my phone is my primary computing device, and my laptop comes in a pretty distant second. So I really need my laptop to just work for the few times that I do pick it up, and Arch is not really conducive to that. Until I recently installed NixOS, I was on LMDE 7.

That makes total sense. If the laptop only comes out now and then, the last thing you want is to open it and spend the first hour fixing something. NixOS feels like a really good fit for that since you can just roll back if an update goes sideways.

I mean the “unstable” name is almost misleading, it is close to the stability of a rolling release distro. But the point I wanted to make is that you can always cherry pick one very specific thing from unstable or some other alternative nixpkgs repository and bolt on top of a system based on a stable, tagged release. Suppose there’s this PR with a newly packaged piece of software, you can add that branch/repo as an second nixpkgs input (if you are using flakes) or channel and use overlays to “integrate” the thing you are looking for, without conflicting with anything else you have on your system.

That's precisely my thought. Keeping software up to date is a great thing, but I also need a good level of stability. And so, having the easy update rollback is a fantastic thing. I used to play with like the Ubuntu beta versions, but I would always play with them inside of virtual machines while leaving my hardware on something that was stable. And I play with beta software on my phone all the time, but that's at the application level, not the operating system level.

ah, yeah fair enough. Since I only use the laptop occasionally, I don't find myself needing very many things that aren't already available in a stable package or whatever. It is definitely good to know that I can do it if I need to though.

Testing the beta stuff in a VM while the real hardware stays on something stable is such a sensible setup. Rollbacks kind of give you that same safety net without needing the VM. Hope NixOS stays nice and boring for you.

Great to hear your exp and that you stuck with it this time round. Tried using immutable systems for the idea of security and me not screwing anything up but it became really cumbersome to use the ostree and not being able to do sys adm stuff on the fly. Couldnt even get KVM working which is something i rely on a daily basis. Nix seems interesting how easy it is to roll back and once you get it you can just type what you want like a simple script. OS Customization must be limitless

i will drink to staying boring 🍻

Cheers to that. A boring OS is the best kind of OS 🍻

Found my first NixOS buddy in nostr I guess🤝