NixOS vs PsychOS

Atomic non-destructive upgrades / rollback of a system upgrade / declarative reproducible system configuration / unprivileged installation of packages / transparent source or binary deployment.

You can start with a minimal environment and add packages and software to suit your needs as you go along.

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.

Packages don't break after a NixOS upgrade as they are prone to with other distros (especially Arch).

PsychOS is designed for older/lighter, 32-bit, i686 hardware with plans to go even further back with i486 (PsychOS486), i386 and older (PsychDOS), and so on and so forth as opposed to always trying to run on the latest hardware, not that it could in most cases anyway since 32-bit i686 operating systems will run on most x86_64 ones.

It lets you install old software for use with emulators like DOSBox but run them as if they were normal programs from the normal applications menu.

A lot of the programs are already set up for you. Just boot it and go. This is definitely one of the better SHTF distro's.

There's a yad-based tool you do not see on any other GNU/Linux distro in which you can simply right-click pretty much any file and then use the "QuickEdit" option to quickly edit small things about a file such as size if it's an image or video, convert the file, or even render the file if it's a Blender project. It's nice not having to open an image with GIMP every time I want to resize or convert something.

Most GNU/Linux distributions that include IceWM as a desktop environment option don't do too much to it, if a t all. PsychOS seems to have a customized or themed version that actually doesn't feel you with dread and still uses many of the keyboard shortcuts from XFCE.

Lots of command-line tools and I really like the CLIMax thing. It's a good tool to have if you want to spend time in the command-line but aren't that experienced. Also, it plays a quick, one-time ascii animation when you go into the tty for the first time.

PsychOS comes with a lot of Thunar Custom Actions, many of which as disabled, but they are there none the less; most probably just in case. Right-click on a DOOM WAD shows there's a menu item to play it directly using LZDoom.