this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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Comparison between NixOS vs blendOS vs Vanilla OS: what to pick and why? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by tanja@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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So I've recently taken an interest in these three distros:

All of these offer something very interesting:
Access to (basically) all Linux-capable software, no matter from what repo.

Both NixOS and blendOS are based on config files, from which your system is basically derived from, and Vanilla OS uses a package manager apx to install from any given repo, regardless of distribution.

While I've looked into Fedora Silverblue, that distro is limited to only install Flatpaks (edit: no, not really), which is fine for "apps", but seems to be more of a problem with managing system- and CLI tools.

I haven't distro hopped yet, as I'm still on Manjaro GNOME on my devices.

What are your thoughts on the three distros mentioned above?
Which ones are the most interesting, and for what reasons?

Personally, I'm mostly interested in NixOS & blendOS, as I believe they may have more advantages compared to Arch;

What do you think?

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[–] zhenbo_endle@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While I’ve looked into Fedora Silverblue, that distro is limited to only install Flatpaks, which is fine for “apps”, but seems to be more of a problem with managing system- and CLI tools.

No. Your understanding to Fedora Silverblue is wrong. I can just run rpm-ostree install package.name in Silverblue, like other Fedora spins. The small disadvantage is that I need to reboot to apply this update. (re-construct)

but doesn’t that result in new A/B snapshots, or something like that?

Well, you can call it snapshots, but there is no need to think about it. In most cases, the system points to the newest snapshot (deployment 0). If a rollback is needed, I can pin to the older deployments. When a major change is to be applied (Like bump Fedora version), I'd manually mark the current deployment as dont-auto-delete.

Sure, but I’d like to have a more seamless experience, i.e. not having to open/start any “containers” or something like that.

I never used toolbox in my Fedora Silverblue system. I feel that I can't tell the difference between using Silverblue and the default Fedora spin

[–] tanja@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thank you; that was very insightful 😊

Also: I think rpm-ostree only supports rpm-based packages, tho; right?

Can I install .deb software too?
And is there any kind of system-as-a-config-file kind of solution available like in NixOS or blendOS?

[–] andruid@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For other systems I think distrobox and toolbox are kind the intended way to mess with them. For configuration as code ansible is a popular answer.

[–] tanja@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How well does Ansible work when I want to change my config? Is a quick reboot sufficient!

[–] andruid@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

It depends on if the changes needs it or not. You can set a reboot flag on a given task and at the end the system will reboot, but if no reboot is needed then it will just make the change live.

[–] zhenbo_endle@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also: I think rpm-ostree only supports rpm-based packages, tho; right?

Can I install .deb software too?

I don't think rpm-ostree could support .deb softwares, just like dnf/yum can't support deb packages.

Can you share your use case for trying to install a deb package in Fedora? I'm just curious.

And is there any kind of system-as-a-config-file kind of solution available like in NixOS or blendOS?

Good question. I only have a few computers, so I had never considered about it.

[–] gigatexal@mastodon.social 1 points 1 year ago

@zhenbo_endle @tanja you can install deb software in a seamless way using toolbox https://catalog.redhat.com/software/containers/rhel8/toolbox and a very simple Debian container