From Windows to NixOS

Getting Started with Linux

I initially started using Linux in 2019 by dual booting it with Windows on my laptop. My laptop at the time was only ever used for programming which meant I never ended up booting into Windows.

Ubuntu

This was my first Linux distribution of choice for a few different reasons. Previously, I had used Ubuntu on a server for web hosting, game servers, etc so I had some familiarity with it. Many people at the time suggested Ubuntu as a good starting point for a Linux beginner so this is what I chose.

Ubuntu had many positives for me including reliability, stability and customisability. It was very rare for me to encounter any issues at all and was generally a pretty good Linux distro for me at the time. It was a great introduction into Linux but it always felt like there was something missing.

Arch Linux

While using Ubuntu, I had heard many positive things about Arch Linux and how it was considered to be a “difficult” / “challenging” distro. Many people had commented on its rolling releases, and the AUR (Arch User Repository) which included a large selection of software.

In 2020, I made the move over to Arch Linux. I completely wiped my laptop, only installing Arch on it and dual booted my main PC with Arch and Windows. At this point, I primarily used Arch Linux and only booted into Windows for certain games. While the installation of Arch isn’t as difficult as people had made it out to be, it was a very informative and educational process.

When I first installed Arch, I started off by using KDE Plasma which is a full desktop environment. While I liked, KDE it always felt like there was so much stuff that I rarely / never used. This then had lead me to discovering i3 and tiling window managers in general, which vastly improved my workflow and development productivity. Arch Linux + i3 felt perfect for me as it gave me full control over the entire system and how everything worked.

While Arch Linux did work very well for me, there were a few rare occasions where an update may stop my system from booting or just outright stop software from working correctly. These were uncommon but were still incredibly annoying when they did happen and I started to care much less about being on the bleeding edge and more about system stability.

NixOS

In 2024, I made the move over to NixOS. When compared to Arch, NixOS was significantly more complicated and has a much higher learning curve. Even installing packages is a slightly more involved process than Arch:

Installation on Arch

sudo pacman -S firefox

Installation on NixOS

vim "<nixos_config_directory>"

{
	environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
		firefox # Add firefox to the system packages list
	];
}

sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake "<config_path>"@"<hostname>"
git commit -am "Added Firefox"
git push

It isn’t a massively complex process but, this general flow applies to every aspect of the system. If you want to make a change, open the config, make the change, rebuild the system. Every. Single. Time.

This all does have one massive positive. The entire system is configured through a file which is version controlled. Anytime the system will need to be reinstalled, installed onto a new device, etc it’s a much quicker process. All that is required is cloning the repo and rebuilding with the flake. Then, all your programs, themes, and preferences will be set up and ready to go.

It’s also not only the system configuration that can be controlled through Nix, so can the users home folder. There is a tool called Home Manager that integrates with NixOS and allows user configurations (such as dotfiles) to be managed declaratively with Nix.

I have my NixOS configuration in a Github repo that can be found at member87/nixos.