One would think so but then you find out even more issues crop up with certain software.. Maybe things have changed but I found that anything that relied on opengl and such would need special workarounds to run on non-NixOS when I tried.

This was perhaps only an issue with launching from nix shell.. but it caused enough friction for me that I ended up switching. It's much easier to use, e.g., steam-run/appimage-run/nix-alien/plain-ole-npx for all special cases on NixOS than the vice-versa issues on non-NixOS imho.

I feel like the Atomic Linux approach is already a better fit for desktop usage. Flatpaks for most user software along with other options to install packages with different methods if there are special/legacy requirements.

I think the only negative aspect of the approach is the sheer quantity [1] of package installation options available.

[1] https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/

The whole point of NixOS is to make packages a special case of configuration. Running nix elsewhere doesn't do that and for configuration there are more mature tools. It would be like using Ansible(/Salt/Puppet or other similar tools) without any of the upside those have. Don't be afraid to use those tools though, they're great.

You could take a look at guix [1], it's very much like nix, but is available as a package manager for other distros.

[1] https://guix.gnu.org/

> You'd avoid the friction of having to deal with software that doesn't 'just work' on NixOS

I'm not sure what type of software you're talking about, but Linux native software usually works with 'steam-run', which is really the "pretend to be Ubuntu" command.

A lot of people say this, but honestly this kind of sounds like someone who doesn't understand the ethos around NixOS. NixOS isn't just a vanilla Linux distro with Nix preinstalled

The whole point of NixOS is that the entire system is managed by Nix. The entirety of everything is declarative in your configuration file(s) and the entire system can consistently be rebuilt from the configuration. The root system is immutable after being built and as such it is trivial to snapshot.

This isn't just a trivial implementation detail, it changes the entire way that you use the computer. Boot parameters, drivers, installed programs, everything is done via configuration, as opposed to installing Nix on Ubuntu where most stuff is still managed haphazardly and mutably.

You might not think that's good or worth it, but I dispute the notion that installing Nix on a non-NixOS distro gives you the "best of both worlds". They're very different things.

Great work! I love that NixOS makes encoding these settings so easy. 'Sadly', my T14 Gen 5 AMD worked out of the box with NixOS, so nothing to contribute :). (I see that this model is in the repo with minimal configuration.)

Did the switch to NixOS a few months ago on my Thinkpad and ChatGPT worked wonders. I'm not very experienced with Linux distros and have been an Ubuntu user for a long time. I don't think I'll be switching away from NixOS anytime soon, it's great.

The learning curve is still extremely steep but after the initial 10 hours of googling it just all falls into place.

I’ve found much success using the most recent LLMs (mostly ones trained on 2024 data) for configuring nixos. It’s even pretty good at flake workflows as well!

Nix is fantastic with Claude Sonnet.

If I were designing a laptop specifically for Linux it’s hard to image going for anything but Intel for networking, but it’s possible Tuxedo’s ODM doesn’t give them the choice.

This is why I stopped caring about Linux brand laptops, in the end they are simply white brands where Linux mostly works, not everything, not everything out of the box as any laptop I might buy on the shopping mall computer center.

Maybe when they get System 76 devices on display.

Excellent write up and great real world review. You mentioned wanting to become a generalist.

The missing applet for tuxedo-rs would be a great opportunity to "scratch an itch" and learn some new technology.

You have some options on the language you write the applet in if you're not ready to jump in to Rust or C.

Might be a great way to learn some stuff outside of web development.

Good luck.

My experience with Linux since the 1990s has been that bleeding edge hardware is never a great choice. I've had the best experience with slightly older laptops (typically bought 2nd hand).

The challenge here is installing NixOS. The ease of installing Linux on the laptops you've used is because someone else has already done this kind of work.