this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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nixOS , because it's a completely atomic distribution, like a docker container OS style. You define the state of the system in a configuration file, which can even control the kernel, and you can switch to an older configuration file in any reboot. It's more of a pain than the others, but it works ok out of the box and when you fix something it stays fixed so you'll never end up in a situation where something breaks and you can't fix it.
Also, all the packages bring their own versions of their own libraries and directly link to them so they'll never break during upgrades, but conversely a lot of Linux installers that try to link to system libraries won't work.
I love NixOS but it can be quite difficult to learn, so learning both linux and nixos at once would be pretty difficult. It'd probably be easier for them to use some normal distro while they figure out how linux works and then switch to NixOS later.
That's fair. nixOS can be savage. But I think it's also helpful for a beginner since you can't break it. A beginner is much more likely to break their system than an expert.