[SkyMarshal]

>I really like the idea of NixOS, but there not being a single clear guide of how to set everything up (and the messy documentation) is the biggest thing holding me back.

Yeah this part is messy, and why I always disclaim that I had a learning curve of several months to make the transition. However, my system setup is a little more complex than the standard install - mirrored ZFS root drives on dual m.2 drives, with mirrored boot partitions. That wasn't in the docs, needed a blog post to explain it [1].

>I also really don't like wasting so much time on tinkering with my system the way I used to do.

I've found that once you get everything configured to your liking, you spend similar or less time tinkering than on other OS's, just because the entire system config is captured in a single config file now. There's some up-front learning and work required, but after that it's smooth sailing.

[1]:https://elis.nu/blog/2019/08/encrypted-zfs-mirror-with-mirro...

[SkyMarshal]

I should add, to be fair to NixOS and the team, that there are three main official documenation sections: Nix, nixpkgs, and NixOS:

https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/

https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/

https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/

Anyone looking into transitioning to NixOS should take a leisurely weekend and just read through all three of those first. Being at least familiar with all of what's there will make getting up and running a lot smoother.