When comparing NixOS vs Archbang, the Slant community recommends NixOS for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for an old machine?” NixOS is ranked 31st while Archbang is ranked 46th. 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 The best features of Arch without the hassle
ArchBang is minimal but completely functional out of the box. It's still up to you to set up to your liking. You still get Arch's unmatched documentation, insanely vast number of packages (in AUR) and extreme customizability. And a small but friendly and approachable community.
Pro Rolling release
Being based on Arch, Archbang follows a rolling release schedule, ensuring that the software will always be on the bleeding edge.
Pro Lightweight
Archbang is a pretty lightweight distro. It uses Openbox as a Window Manager by default, without having the need to use a desktop environment which would only bloat the OS further.
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.