yala

I just wanted to offer some nuance to the table. After everything has been learned, enabling some (otherwise complex and obscure) features can be accomplished by a single line in your NixOS config. Like, this efficiency can not and should not be ignored.

You can find some of my thoughts on Fedora Atomic in another comment found under this post. Spoiler alert; for a lot of people, it's what they seek from NixOS but (by contrast) with excellent delivery. I won't ignore that it doesn't have some of the more insane/interesting functionalities that NixOS provides. But, some just want atomicity, reproducibility and (some) declarativity; and Fedora Atomic does deliver on those without requiring you to go into the deep and learn an entire new language that's only used for managing your distro 😅.

is PopOS! still the popular choice for desktop gaming?

Pop!_OS was pretty good for two reasons:

• System76 sells devices installed with it. Thus, onboarding (potentially new) users is something they put significant efforts into. As a result, it was a pretty polished experience that offers some unique functionality like factory reset and
• Easiest install for proprietary Nvidia drivers on the market

But, the Linux landscape is always on the move. And while the engineers behind Pop!_OS have put their hearts and souls into COSMIC (a new Desktop Environment), the current available version of Pop!_OS has seen only relatively timid changes. Thus, it has become less competitive over time.

For example, over the past two years, distros have erupted that come with built-in Nvidia drivers (pre-installed).

So, Pop!_OS has gone slightly out of favor. But, if you liked what you had back then, then it's still perfectly reasonable to continue using it.

But..., if you're actually interested in the latest and greatest Linux for desktop gaming, then we'd have to mention the following:

• Bazzite; built-on technologies made possible through Fedora Atomic. This is one of the few distros that, based on its installer, come with built-in Nvidia drivers pre-installed. Rock-solid atomic system that comes with all the bells and whistles without sacrificing any general functionality nor high security standards. Offers decent documentation (please consider to read up on it) and has thought up great onboarding solutions. All-in-all, it's (probably) the most hands-off gaming experience on Linux.
• ChimeraOS; this is more of a couch-gaming/console experience. Unfortunately, only supports AMD. Definitely worth mentioning still.

Honorable mentions:

• Nobara; Glorious Eggroll's (will be abbreviated to GE) distro. GE is well known for providing all kinds of gaming related goodies. For example, a popular set of Proton releases/derivatives is Proton-GE and it's often recommended over the others. So, the community was very excited when GE announced (and shortly after) released its contribution to Linux distros for gaming; a Fedora-based distro called Nobara. It did a lot of good things and still does. However, as a former Nobara user, I have to say that updates for major releases are pretty hit or (mostly) miss. This is not GE's fault; it's the nature of the beast. Reproducible distros (like Bazzite) are able to circumvent these issues with help of incredible engineering that goes on in the background. But, this is not Nobara's stronghold. (And let's not even talk about the bus factor.) If you're fine with potentially reinstalling every once in a while, then, by all means proceed. But, if you'd rather not, then other options are better.
• Linux Mint (Edge ISO); this is just the goodness we've come to appreciate from Linux Mint but with a more up-to-date kernel. Kernel updates often come with improvements to performance. So, with this, you won't be missing out. Like Pop!_OS, it's based on Ubuntu. The only caveat with Mint is the fact that it's not enabled to game from the get-go. The required steps to get it all setup aren't very hard, but it's great to just have everything setup for gaming from the start.

I agree that Fedora Atomic, especially if you consume it through uBlue, provides (somehow) even less headache with only a fraction of the investment.

I say this as a very happy user of Fedora Atomic; who has (almost) exclusively been using Fedora Atomic on all of their systems (read: 1 laptop) for over two years.

I would argue that NixOS absolutely is the OS you get if your time is worthless

Hard disagree. Does it require you to climb through heaps of trash documentation? Absolutely. But, if you persevere, you got yourself a rock solid system that will even make Debian Stable jealous; all while requiring no maintenance.

1. Better documentation has been made available since relatively recently.

Why does your brother use NixOS in the first place?

Don't get me wrong; I think NixOS is a very interesting project with a very bright future. It probably wouldn't be an exaggeration if I said that NixOS has single-handedly inspired the current immutable revolution. However, it's also a distro that wants you to learn and digest its ways before it will return the favor.

But, based on my reading/understanding of your comment, your brother doesn't strike me as a seasoned Linux user. Am I right? Btw, NixOS is hard unbeknownst of how many experiences you got with other distros. However, I would simply never recommend a new user to use (Gentoo, Guix System or) NixOS. There are definitely outliers, but they would have to find it themselves then.

Furthermore, a CLI instruction is DE-agnostic. So you don't need to cover the same topic with explanations for at least 3/4 desktop environments. GUI instructions also change a lot faster than their CLI counterparts; so by providing the commands one provides the method with the best longevity. Overall, it's just so much more efficient.

The main difference at this point isn’t what you can do with them, but how they’re set up by default

Excellently distilled most of my post.

I wonder if distros are interested to further blur the lines themselves; like how Debian and Fedora both enable Flatpak by default.

To be honest, I think the homogenization is a net positive.

Definitely. But I feel like we fail at capitalizing on this. Though, in all fairness, the fact that derivatives have lost (some of) their significance does convey to me that we're currently in a major shift. I just wonder where we'll end up and if there's anything we (as a community) can do in order to accelerate the process.

Thank you for touching upon the human-side of things! I wonder if my original point could be distilled to "Can we, humans, simply act more rational?" 😅.

The philosophies behind the different distros is definitely something I didn't touch upon earlier. Thank you for mentioning that!

I wonder how different the philosophies are between Arch, Debian Sid, Fedora Rawhide and openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Hats off for the efforts provided by maintainers. But I feel as if that potential should be better utilized (in part) to achieve greater goals.

Traditionally; definitely. But if the purpose of package managers is to acquire packages fit for use with the distro, then the position of alt packaging formats (e.g. Nix) and/or solutions that make use of container technology (e.g. Distrobox) at least provide some food for thought.

Like, if I choose to install Debian (Stable) and openSUSE Leap and then proceed to install all my packages through distro-agnostic ways accessible on both distros (e.g. Flatpak, Brew, Nix etc.), then wouldn't you agree that these systems become remarkably close to one another?

Unfortunately, perhaps understandably so, popularity is very hard to measure on Linux. Though, while far from representative, ProtonDB's measurements do exist and provide us some insights. As for the distros found on the chart:

• Arch (base):
  • Endeavour
  • Garuda^[1]^
  • Manjaro
• Debian (base):
  • Ubuntu
    • Linux Mint^[2]^
    • Pop_OS!
• Fedora (base):
  • Nobara
• NixOS
• openSUSE

Note that Flatpak is not a distribution, but a packaging format.

BoilingSteam's article in which their thoughts and reflections are written can be found here.

1. While it's technically not labeled, the blue-colored columns found right below openSUSE belong to Garuda; as can be seen here (from an earlier iteration of the graph).
2. Technically, Linux Mint also has their Debian Edition. But, the vast majority of its users should be using the one based directly on Ubuntu.