Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to SafariWhen comparing Nix vs Devuan GNU+Linux, the Slant community recommends Devuan GNU+Linux for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for desktops?” Devuan GNU+Linux is ranked 8th while Nix is ranked 68th. The most important reason people chose Devuan GNU+Linux is:
Devuan is Debian just without systemd, it just mirrors the the Debian archive and repacks packages that have hard dependencies on systemd.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro No side effects when building packages
Nix is a purely functional package management system. This means that the act of building a package does not have side effects, such as destructively updating or deleting files that may be used by other packages.
Pro Isolated development environments
Nix allows the creation of project-specific shell and build environments which are isolated from the rest of the system. These environments are defined declaratively to ensure reproducibility.
Pro Can replace docker in some places
Pro Can use multiple versions of the same package
Because of the functional approach it takes, Nix makes it easy for systems to use multiple versions of the same package simultaneously, and ensure that updating or removing a package can't break other packages.
Pro The configuration works on "All machines"
No more of the traditional: "it works on my machine". When it says reproducible, this is the real deal.
Pro It's Debian
Devuan is Debian just without systemd, it just mirrors the the Debian archive and repacks packages that have hard dependencies on systemd.
Pro No Systemd
Pro Stability
It is stable like Debian.
Pro Excellent for normal people
It is easy to use and is a good choice for beginners.
Pro Most decent look amongst other XFCE distros
Default XFCE theme is unique of all the XFCE distos including MXLinux, Xubuntu etc.
Cons
Con Does not work well for services on non-NixOS systems
When using Nix with anything other than NixOS you can run into difficulties with trying to start up services. For example, you can install docker with Nix, but it won't integrate with the host system's systemd leaving you to handcraft awkward workarounds in order to start the background service that docker requires. This seems like a critical flaw when using Nix on anything that is not NixOS, and it's unfortunate because this affects many of the packages many users would be most interested in using Nix to handle.
Con Steep learning curve
Con Cannot handle filetypes that have different semantics across different versions
While the functional approach that Nix takes is great for sandboxing binary artifacts of packages, it seriously lacks any power in handling configuration files or user data. It's difficult to upgrade and downgrade files where semantics and syntax can change between versions. Especially in Debian/Ubuntu it can cause severe problems where the upgrade process blocks and the user needs to resolve the 3-way merge.
Con Feels slightly over-complicated
Con Difficult to install on non-free hardware
Unlike Debian, Devuan offers no unfree netinstall media, so if your system needs unfree drivers (e.g a laptop or a tablet), you'll have to download the Debian firmware on a separate USB.
Con No systemd
Con Fragmentation
Forked distributions like Devuan and Artix fragment the Linux community and hurt the original project. Debian users who do not want systemd should use Slackware or BSD instead.
