Arch and Gentoo users reading about NixOS

...to get a working config, you need to learn a whole new programming language and figure out the tweaks for each package you want to install, so I'd argue the journey is just as long

nix being 20 years old and still lacking decent documentation on the language it's what hurts me the most, because the people who do know it works so some amazing things with it

How often do you reinstall your OS? In practice never, I installed Arch around 8 years ago on one computer and that's the install I have today still. I copied it twice to a bigger SSD but that's kind of it.

Or, they could learn Ansible and get 80% of the way, and be able to reproduce the result on more than one OS. 🥹

Wow, you have sold me on installing Nix next. I'm a programmer and this sounds dreamy!

Meanwhile me using Fedora with pretty much everything setup the way I want it out of the box:

I am a Gentoo user and most of that is already a reality on Gentoo systems. Get the stage3 tarball set up, slap your /etc/portage/make.conf and /var/lib/portage/world files in there and build.

Obviously, depending on whether it should be a blank system with the same apps installed or a clone of a previous system, configuration in /etc and one's home directory may need to be copied, too.

I might just be basic but the only annoying part of reinstalling for me is setting up my browser again.

Stop threatening me with a good time!

If you have time for that, you aren't making the most of yourself. Goes for any hobby

With gentoo and arch you are learning how linux works. Replace nixos with salt or ansible and it can even get you a job.

I think Endeavour OS is like that too. I have 2 "unfixable" bugs on my arch installation that can never be removed. I have to manually do 2 annoying workaround tasks every time I turn on my computer before I can use it and this will likely never go away. I've been told both these issues can't be fixed without a complete os reinstall and even then it might not go away. I booted into an Endeavour OS live usb and what do you know, both those bugs were fixed out of the box. Endeavour is based on Arch. The kernel it was running was a kernel number release after my installation developed both of these "forever" bugs.

Arch is great and all but holy fuck I'm sick and tired of this fucking bullshit all the time. One of these times I'm going to type sudo pacman -Syu and it will develop yet a third unfixable forever bug. This is the same shit that drove me away from Windows: uncontrollable degradation over time that can't be fixed without os reinstall. Even Gentoo isn't this unforgiving.