When comparing NixOS 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 6th while NixOS is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Devuan GNU+Linux is:
It is stable like Debian.
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 Stability
It is stable like Debian.
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 Excellent for normal people
It is easy to use and is a good choice for beginners.
Pro No Systemd
Pro Most decent look amongst other XFCE distros
Default XFCE theme is unique of all the XFCE distos including MXLinux, Xubuntu etc.
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 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.
