Get the latest tech news

Switching from Arch to NixOS

Written at 2024-07-23 I’ve switched my desktop computer environment from Arch Linux to NixOS and used it for about a month. I want to share my migration experience in case it might interest or even help others.

As someone who likes playing with tools to understand how they work as well as to match my preferences and ergonomic choices, I find myself frequently changing many configurations on my system. In addition to these problems mentioned, although not very often, I would encounter situations in Arch Linux where I had to look up an error message, a specific bug, or a non-backward compatible update for some of the apps I use. Another example is Nix flakes, which are meant to replace channels (an imperative way of downloading packages) but are still considered an experimental feature by NixOS.

Get the Android app