this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
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Well, maybe i'm not your average Arch user then.. Don't see the appeal in Nix, honestly, and i'm too lazy to learn. What is GNU Guix? Never heard of it.
I'm kinda tinkering with Debian Sid atm.
Guix (pronounced "geeks") is like Nix (declarative, functional, atomic) but more Emacs (niche, lispy, Free)
I've been a Debian guy for many years and it's unlikely I'll move away in the foreseeable future.
Nix is a package manager and nix-os is an OS built around that package management system.
You can install nix the package manager in debian. I don't use it for installing desktop apps like a browser or office suite, I prefer AppImages for those. However, it's absolutely fantastic for CLI stuff, especially the things you might want as a once off. You can just
nix-shell -p <obscure cli tool>and it's just magically there in a new temporary shell, and then cleaned up once you quit that shell. No more adding weird repos to apt, or downloading from github and building, or piping scripts to bash.There's also home-manager which allows you to define packages and their configurations, and just roll out that state on any machine.
These fancy package management tools (flatpak, AppImage, and nix) have dramatically changed the Debian experience. I used to be forever struggling with the trade off between stability and old versions of things. That's really not the case any more because you don't have to interfere with Debian's conservative methodical ideology around stability in order to install and use all the shiny new things.
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Yeah so "cleaned up" wasn't completely true.
Nix basically works by installing packages in a store or cache, and then soft linking to the binaries in the cache.
When you exit the temporary shell, the link will no longer exist but the cached package and its dependencies are still there.
You can easily clear that cache but it's not gone instantly when you exit the shell.
That's actually what I figured/hoped. As long as they're making an effort to keep that secure, sounds like a good approach to me!
That sounds like a good compromise. I am really enjoying NixOs, but I miss the simplicity of Debian. I'll think about your method.
You just installed Nix from APT, I assume, but are you still rebuilding a config.nix every time you make a "permanent" change?
Agreed on nix-shell -p, that's extremely handy.
It's strange to see someone move from Ubuntu to Arch, like it, and have aspirations of Debian. Ubuntu to Debian is fairly straightforward, didn't you have to do a bunch of shit to get on and learn arch?
Do you wanna hear the whole backstory?
I'm in Ur thread, reading Ur posts.
Yes I want free entertainment.
Well, you asked for it.
I started my Journey on Mint. The Install broke, but I wasn't gonna give up that easily. So I used AI to troubleshoot it (not my best times, but I was desperate). I customized mint, I cherished it and loved my escape from the grasps of Microsoft.
Eventually, I noticed you couldn't do rounded corners on Cinnamon (I didn't understand DEs at the time, thinking you could only use the DE that came with the Distro).
It pissed me off so much that I went and tried something with Plasma. I went with OpenSUSE, in part cuz I liked the Chameleon, in part because I did like the concept. Bluetooth and wifi didn't work ootb and for me as a beginner that sealed the deal, I wasn't able to fix it.
Next, I went to Kubuntu, thinking it'll be stable and have Plasma. And it was. It was all i'd ever hoped for. Stable, many features, super customizable. I even messed around with config files etc (mind you, this was like 3 weeks into my journey). I loved it. Even disabled snaps eventually.
But eventually I got bored. I started trying out other Distros, not hopping but just trying out their live installs. I no longer liked the corporate backend of Canonical. I wanted something new.
I also watched a lot of Linux content at the time, and I was confused and annoyed that I wasn't getting the newest updates to stuff. That's when I really started learning about DEs, Rolling releases etc.
I didn't even really think of Debian as an option at the time, I kept hearing it was old and outdated, which I didn't want.
That's when I fell down the Arch rabbit hole. Cool logo, cool concept, hacker mode.
I wanted that, So, I tried Cachy and Endeavor. No. It wasn't enough. I wanted that Arch logo natively in fastfetch. I wanted to say "I use arch btw". First, I messed around in VMs. from 3pm to 3am, all I did was try and install arch in VMs. Manually, of course. I decided it was the only way to get the experience needed.
I was able to do it eventually. The Step to bare metal was... not as smooth as expected. what the hell is NVMEp02?? And stuff like that. It look a long time until I was done. And it was buggy, I had messed up. Shit didn't work. I decided, well, it works except for weird stuff, strange issues I didn't care to troubleshoot. So I used Archinstall, and no I don't feel guilty, I can still do it manually if I wanted to I was just lazy.
Aaaand here we are. Arch is amazing and fantastic. But Debian Testing is almost as fast in terms of releases and I like the extra stability. Using Cosmic on Arch, actually. I love the tiling functionality. We shall see what the future brings
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Be careful with Debian Testing, it is prioritized last for security patch frequency of the 3 Debian versions. It is possible to daily drive but not really meant for that, and even Arch has more safeguards.
idk, is it really that bad? I've heard of many people using debian sid for daily
Is it a horrendous idea? No. I do realize people daily it. It is just not designed for it. If something breaks on Arch, you can just check social media for an update and know it'll be fixed shortly or what the fix is on your end. For Debian Testing/Unstable it's more like you report an issue and they go "noted!" A bit of an exaggeration but there are no patch notes and no dedicated security team. Security patches will get to you maybe at some point. This isn't to trash Debian in any way, but it is what it says on the tin: the testing/unstable variant, not a rolling release.
Ah ok, you wanted something new and to experiment and wanted the most up to date thing without going into "side branches".
I also really understand wanting to use a mainline Linux, I'm prouder of using main vanilla ass Debian since it feels more official and respected to present myself professionally saying "yes, I use Linux, my distro is Debian" instead of "I use mint because I need more handholding" or "I use Nobara/Pika because I am a 420 blaze it gamer".
I did similar stuff to you, if you're interested you can check out my journey. However, during this distro hop I did come more to terms with understanding distros are basically DE + package manager + bundled software, with a few differences and outliers.
Which led me to having the fun situation where I hated MATE, uninstalling it from my Ubuntu mate install, putting on KDE, distro hopping and when I went for Debian net install, repeating the KDE install after being shocked that a bare bones Debian install has no DE.
I did it again for a trashtop that I have, removing LMDE's default DE and installing XFCE because I didn't like... Cinnamon?
I mean I see the appeal of both. I used arch for a bit then went back to Ubuntu-based actually. Arch is cool and all, but I had some major functionality break a few times. I got tired of tinkering with it. Ubuntu "just works" most of the time. Interested to see what op writes about it too...
Have you thought about trying Mint, specifically LMDE?
Nah, not really. Pop_OS has been my favorite so far. Been on it about 5 years now.