When comparing NixOS vs Trisquel GNU/Linux, the Slant community recommends NixOS for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for desktops?” NixOS is ranked 19th while Trisquel GNU/Linux is ranked 29th. The most important reason people chose NixOS is:
Atomic non-destructive upgrades / rollback of a system upgrade / declarative reproducible system configuration / unprivileged installation of packages / transparent source or binary deployment.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro State of the art package manager
Atomic non-destructive upgrades / rollback of a system upgrade / declarative reproducible system configuration / unprivileged installation of packages / transparent source or binary deployment.
Pro Minimal
You can start with a minimal environment and add packages and software to suit your needs as you go along.
Pro Reproducible system
NixOS is configured using the Nix package manager, allowing your system to be replicated and kept in sync across multiple machines. Great for keeping a laptop and desktop in sync.
Pro Robust
Packages don't break after a NixOS upgrade as they are prone to with other distros (especially Arch).
Pro Polished look and feel
Fresh installation looks great.
Pro Reliable and working great out-of-the-box
It works on many machines. Really good.
Pro Good but not so good
There's been a lot of effort put in this project through the years, there is no question about it. It's 100% free and it's very user-friendly, but it being based on Ubuntu 16.04 isn't the best thing, as you are working with software that still is actual but the versions are not the newest.
Cons
Con Documentation is not good
A lot of the documentation of various functions is buried on the source code, their respective manuals, or non-existent. The documentation, the conventions, and the scattered toolchain really made searching for stuff easily missable.
Con A configuration change might end up bricking your system
Con Avoid proprietary-only GPU drivers
GPUs without libre drivers are a problem (not fault of Trisquel, of course). Also Wi-Fi cards in the same vein.