NixOS is an independently developed GNU/Linux distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. In NixOS, the entire operating system, including the kernel, applications, system packages and configuration files, are built by the Nix package manager. Nix stores all packages in isolation from each other; as a result there are no /bin, /sbin, /lib or /usr directories and all packages are kept in /nix/store instead. Other innovative features of NixOS include reliable upgrades, rollbacks, reproducible system configurations, source-based model with binaries, and multi-user package management. Although NixOS started as a research project, it is now a functional and usable operating system that includes hardware detection, KDE as the default desktop, and systemd for managing system services.

• NixOS 26.05
• NixOS 25.11
• NixOS 25.05
• NixOS 24.05
• NixOS 23.11

After using NixOS, going back to the usual linux distros is a pain. In my opinion, the nix approach is a large improvement over the usual "get the package and hope it works" approach. Reproducibility is very important for ergonomics, it just deals with so many headaches. That said, the OS is far from being the most user friendly and not being the most ubiquitous means not everything is supported and every use case isn't covered by a random stack overflow post. Learning how nix works in order to use it has a steep learning curve, but still the benefits are worth it (things are also changing very quickly).