When I tried nix, I had the most utility from doing a nix-shell -p to get different envs for trying out different versions of apps/environments for dev work.
But for a full system, given universal blue and other variants (e.g. bazzite seems to be having a lot of success on the steam deck), does nix still make sense?
> for a full system ... does nix still make sense?
In many ways, Nix is often "second best at everything". -- Since Nix can be difficult to deal with, it may often be a better choice to use some other tool for any particular use case.
e.g. maybe using asdf is a better way to fetch tools (compared to nix-shell), or docker-compose is a simple way of running project-specific services locally (compared to devenv), or fedora silverblue is a simple way of running an immutable OS (compared to NixOS).
I'd like to think that the benefits from buying into Nix allow easily getting the advantages. e.g. Nix is a more expressive way to build a Docker image or a VM compared to using a Dockerfile or Packer.
For system wide configuration, NixOS allows system-wide configuration declared from a single starting point (possibly composed of several modules), and has those immutable OS benefits like trivial rollbacks.
IME, with flakes, yes. Fork nixpkgs and remove what you’re not using, manually cherry pick what you want. That’s not advice I’ve heard anyone give before, but it’s so nice to just have a a distro that is yours, and everything has a purpose. Not advice, just something that works for me on my personal machines.
I use both now. I find Nix more useful for server environments (and sandboxes). For interactive use, Bluefin/Bazzite are nicer since they tend to cater to their own happy path.
But for a full system, given universal blue and other variants (e.g. bazzite seems to be having a lot of success on the steam deck), does nix still make sense?