Is there a distro with:
- Immutable root
- Active work (examples) toward reproducible packages
- A smaller learning curve than NixOS?
Take a look at the GNU Guix System. It’s similar to NixOS, but maybe their configuration language will be easier.
This. The nix language makes anything bigger harder. A big nix config is just hard to wrangle.
NixOS is style over substance, there is absolutely 0 reason to come with a whole new language for this and Guix is proof of that.
NixOS’ entire project is like this, they make things harder for no other reason than “it looks cooler this way”.
Tried NixOS. As a nonprogrammer, trying to have what I wanted was frustrating. There’s no clear documentation on anything, because everything is experimental. Went back to Arch but will try Guix
Don’t get me wrong Guix is hard too, you’ll have to package things yourself, or use flatpak, or use distrobox or maybe nix itself just to get all the things you need. BUT if you can grasp the language and packaging guidelines, it’s much more clearly laid out. The CLI tools are clearer, the methods are too. It’s not this confusing split mess that seems to be with NixOS. And there is still not a clear plasma desktop. But I’m trying to fix that perhaps. 😁
+1 to Guix, see also: I Love Arch, But GNU Guix Is My New Distro
Could openSUSE MicroOS check the boxes for you?
I discovered it and installed it yesterday, I really like it, no bloat, no useless preinstalled apps, a pure and clean distro.
I’m not using it myself as am on Tumbelweed but I do know it’s quite similar to the idea OP is talking about. Oh and I couldn’t find any references to it being beta on the website 🤷♂️
Universal Blue has a make your own even:
I still run off Kinoite 38 -Main/Latest on my AMD card.
Can use Nix even if you like with extra steps:
Vanilla OS and Blend OS are also immutable with atomic upgrades and has distrobox if you want packages from different distros.
I love vanilla OS, it runs well on my main laptop and is a pleasure to install and setup with every useful options, well made, I can’t wait for the debian version.
NixOS learning curve maybe is not so hard. You can start with default configurations and installed Calamares what is as simple as on other distros. Than look for options and try.
Otherwise, Flatpaks are reproducible (build with flatpak-builder as on Flathub).
I just installed NixOS on an old laptop. It’s really easy to start but the documentation sucks and there aren’t many great tutorials.
Only Silverblue but sadly it’s Fedora which is owned by Red Hat.
I was on Silverblue but I’m on Debian now with the same workflow, minimal kde-plasma-packages install with everything as flatpaks.
