This Linux distro treats your PC like source code—and it almost works

Source Domain: www.howtogeek.com

Most operating systems work in the same basic fashion—you install apps from the binaries or an app store, change configuration files as needed, and perform piecewise updates as needed. NixOS changes that approach entirely.

What in the world is NixOS?

An OS configured by listing components

Operating systems, Linux or otherwise, usually come with a set of pre-defined packages and configuration settings that determine what the OS looks like, how it acts, and what programs it can run.

NixOS relies on a different approach. Rather than modifying a pre-existing OS to suit your liking, you define exactly what you want using a description in a text file. That description includes all of the packages, services, account, and settings you want.

Once you’re done, you run nixos-rebuild switch, which reads flake.nix (or configuration.nix) and builds an operating system from that description.

In many ways, it reminds me a lot of getting a recipe on the internet and then creating a corresponding shopping list. You figure out what you need, then figure out how you need to put those things together. When you’re done, you have something to eat. Or, in this case, you have an operating system.

Underpinning the entire thing is a package manager called Nix, which manually drops each package into its own folder. Critically, the folder is named based on the hash not just the program, which makes installing…

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