[rgoulter]

OP had a situation where software he wanted to run didn't work with NixOS.

If OP wanted the benefits of the Nix package manager (e.g. per-project development environments, using Nix to build container images, etc.), and didn't want the friction of "how do I run this software on NixOS", I think it's straightforward that using Nix on a non-NixOS distro is a practical choice.

[rowanG077]

Using nix on non-NixOS definitely has benefits, I don't think that's disputed. But it's not "the best of both worlds" as the things NixOS gives are immense and not at all fully provided by just using nix on another OS.