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Comment by adkadskhj | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. I switched from macOS to Linux, and i don't see the point if you're not getting something very valuable out of it.

I am however, in my mind, so i'm quite happpy. Specifically, i'm toying with immutable operating systems. I view that as valuable because i feel confident in the stability and reproducibility of my system. I'd probably switch back to macOS if they offered something similar to NixOS, but that seems unlikely in the near future.

If i use Mac for my next laptop i'll probably stick Nixpkgs and HomeManager on it and touch the OS as little as possible outside of Nix.

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If you invest some time building your own linux environment, e.g. Xfce or openbox, or kde.. You will probably found that once it completely works the way you customize it, it will work until You break it. I've seen testimonials of guys using rolling releases of Linux or, some debian based distro that runs for years without any issue. No scam installed alongside your OS. Well... I use arch btw.

Agreed. I've been a Linux desktop user since the mid 90s. It was difficult at first but that was also when Linux was in its infancy. I've had nearly the same working environment now for over a decade. I've matured it a bit but it's still just xfce, Firefox and vim on a thinkpad. The world of mainstream UIs has taken some wild shifts and each one seems to be intent on breaking muscle memory and changing core concepts that you're promised will make your life better, once _you_ adapt. I've never had those problems. My systems just work.

so reproducible on the metal or on a VM on the host OS? I have a very little skin in the game but always interested in other peoples takes

(I am trying to relaunch github.com/mikadosoftware/workstation - basically I want to get ssh -X working for wayland on fedora)

Not sure i follow - but reproducible in the sense that i want a lockfile (ala Cargo, NPM, etc) for my entire operating system. Allowing me to rebuild it perfectly.

NixOS has a lot of flaws in my mind (though some may just be inexperience), but it has some super solid concepts of configuration first systems.

I have not played with NixOS - my project above was to build a workstation in docker that would hold all my daily stuff at a fixed defined level - like a lockfile I guess but a docker file.

I suspect that even the same docker file has much more wriggle room than a nixos definition - it again not too clear on that

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