Seeking guidance for beginner at both Linux and NixOS

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Hello NixOS Community,

I’m completely new to NixOS and only have a basic understanding of Linux. Should I start with NixOS? Could you help me create a roadmap for learning both Linux and NixOS? I’ve been looking for guidance, but I feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to begin. Thank you so much

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Depends why you want to use either; the set of roads is practically infinite.
If you like the idea of using a functional programming language to configure your system, or at least, you find such an idea useful, then NixOS might be good. Otherwise it’d be hard to justify the learning curve if I were in your shoes.

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I’ll echo the question about why you want to use/learn Linux.

Beyond that high level question, some good subquestions might be:

  • what other operating systems do you have meaningful experience with?
  • what kind of stuff will you use this system for?
  • would this be on your primary system, or on a secondary device or VM?
  • how familiar are you with CLIs?
  • do you already have meaningful programming experience or motivation to learn?

FWIW, I had an okay time getting started with NixOS as my first desktop linux in 2018. I already had several years of experience using headless linux for development environments. It isn’t my primary productivity system, so I was free to set it down when it was annoying me and return at leisure. Getting audio working well was exasperating, but AFAIK it’s common for new users of any desktop Linux to feel like audio setup is a kind of hazing if it doesn’t work out of the box. I had also known about Nix since 2015, was already more or less sold on its approach, and was eager to use a system rebuild as a chance to learn it.

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If you do decide you want to learn, the starting point is the installation guide: NixOS Manual

If you get stuck, there will be people willing to help around here, as long as you’re as patient with them as you’d hope they are with you. Helping complete newbies isn’t always easy, it can be hard to figure out what you’re even struggling with.

I will say that gentoo/Arch would be much “gentler” introductions into the Linux ecosystem, while also giving you plenty of space to explore the gory details. NixOS can get in the way of understanding Linux desktops, since it does a lot of things deliberately differently. Plopping a home-manager setup on top of Arch - while it’s not always trivial due to the mess that is graphics drivers - might be a better way to start exploring the nix ecosystem.

Debian, Fedora & co. would make you feel much more welcome altogether, and you can also use home-manager there, though personally I think they remove you a lil’ much from what’s going on if your goal is to learn rather than use.

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