I took a look at NixOS. Am I correct in the assumption that I'd need to take a bachelor's degree to actually get how to use that thing and I'm shit outta luck because I'm an embedded programmer?
Just taking Advanced Functional Programming should be enough.
I have taken such a course, actually, but frankly my NixOS configuration is just a bunch of copy paste from all around the place. I think I could've pulled it off before going to college.
since when is “adding a channel” not part of the “stock” system? if that were so nothing would ever be part of debian based stock systems
That's literally what it is? You're trying to make a Theseus ship argument where there is none. By your logic, ubuntu would be stock debian. "it's just a few apt repos with their packages installed"