--- title: I Used #NixOS For 1 Year - Not a Real Distro | daily.dev description: A one-year retrospective on daily-driving NixOS, covering its declarative configuration approach, file system differences from traditional distros, package... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-nixos-for-1-year---not-a-real-distro-cktqhvwte twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I Used #NixOS For 1 Year - Not a Real Distro | daily.dev og:description: A one-year retrospective on daily-driving NixOS, covering its declarative configuration approach, file system differences from traditional distros, package... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-nixos-for-1-year---not-a-real-distro-cktqhvwte og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/CktQhVwte.png og:image:alt: I Used #NixOS For 1 Year - Not a Real Distro og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I Used #NixOS For 1 Year - Not a Real Distro **[The Linux Cast](https://daily.dev/sources/linuxcast)** · 35 min read · 2 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A one-year retrospective on daily-driving NixOS, covering its declarative configuration approach, file system differences from traditional distros, package management workflow, and the complexity of Nix flakes. Key takeaways include: the read-only root filesystem rarely causes issues in practice, managing services via configuration files is more efficient once learned, flakes remain hard to explain even after a year, and NixOS is especially recommended for developers who can leverage nix-shell for isolated development environments. The author concludes they prefer NixOS over OpenSUSE and may stick with it long-term, while acknowledging it solves problems users don't know they have until they try it. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [NixOS is the endgame of distrohopping](https://daily.dev/posts/nixos-is-the-endgame-of-distrohopping-eyv9mck6i) · Lobsters · 67 upvotes · 8 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#nixos](https://daily.dev/tags/nixos) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-nixos-for-1-year---not-a-real-distro-cktqhvwte) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"I Used #NixOS For 1 Year - Not a Real Distro","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-nixos-for-1-year---not-a-real-distro-cktqhvwte","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-nixos-for-1-year---not-a-real-distro-cktqhvwte"},"datePublished":"2026-07-26T03:10:16.950Z","dateModified":"2026-07-26T03:10:36.470Z","description":"A one-year retrospective on daily-driving NixOS, covering its declarative configuration approach, file system differences from traditional distros, package...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-7vISn5nnks/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-7vISn5nnks/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Linux Cast","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Linux Cast","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OxKNYu2Y--/f_auto/v1729364114/logos/linuxcast","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/linuxcast"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-nixos-for-1-year---not-a-real-distro-cktqhvwte","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":2},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"linux,nixos","timeRequired":"PT35M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"I Used #NixOS For 1 Year - Not a Real Distro","description":"A one-year retrospective on daily-driving NixOS, covering its declarative configuration approach, file system differences from traditional distros, package...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-7vISn5nnks/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-07-26T03:10:16.950Z","duration":"PT35M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/CktQhVwte","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/-7vISn5nnks"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Linux Cast","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/linuxcast"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"I Used #NixOS For 1 Year - Not a Real Distro"}]} ```