[dd_]

As someone who has been using NixOS for a couple of years now, I really want to say how appreciative I am of everybody for making noticeable improvements to the system on a somewhat regular basis. The nix command keeps on adding great new features like flake templates and bundling as well as just being more user friendly (error messages, actionable hints, etc.) Additionally, tools like nix-ld [1] make nix more usable than ever with software from external sources. Things just keep on getting better for NixOS users!

Despite the reputation, I feel that NixOS or some derivative of it has the power to become the best distribution for non-technical users in the long run. What NixOS has done is effectively built an interface to every component of a modern Linux system, all that needs to be built is a user application to take advantage of it. Of course, there still needs be some improvements in Nix itself for it to blossom into its final form, but I really see a path to greatness here.

I have often thought about creating a simple unified Win2K-esq or BeOS-like X11 WM/DE specifically for NixOS but unfortunately I lack the time/motivation.

[1] https://github.com/Mic92/nix-ld

[colordrops]

Yes, I could imagine a very locked down opinionated distro built on top of Nix that completely abstracts away all of it and makes it work somewhat like Ubuntu with some prepared nix templates/metaprogramming to automatically generate config. Over time more of the Nix functionality could be exposed through UI or more friendly cli tools as best practices and nix itself evolve, allowing the distro to remain friendly to non-technical users while opening up it's true powers to them.

It wouldn't be able to handle arbitrary manual changes to config at the beginning, so either there would always be a protected generated config region of the whole config and the distro would remain relatively standardized, or an alternative evolution would be a low-code user friendly UI that could map to any possible nix config.