There are two main ways to install applications and programs: environment.systemPackages and users.users.<name>.packages. While I’ve been using environment.systemPackages to install everything for simplicity, are there advantages to using users.users.<name>.packages for specific programs, or vice versa?
Hey there!
Ultimately, all installed applications end up in the Nix Store, regardless of installation method. The only difference is their availability (in a convenient way, e.g. through an app launcher) for different users of the same system. The description of the users.users.<name>.packages option on NixOS Search reads:
The set of packages that should be made available to the user. This is in contrast to
environment.systemPackages, which adds packages to all users.
I don’t think that’s what they were asking. They’re asking why/when you’d prefer to use one over the other.
Hm, I thought my reply implicitly addresses that question:
A: “Why would you prefer to use one over the other (for application P)?”
B: “It depends on whether you want to make application P easily available to every user or not.”
I don’t see any advantages apart from that. But maybe I’m just missing something? 
