I've realized most of my blog post is not really about NixOS, it's just about this particular TUXEDO laptop requiring special tweaks to work properly. I've set up Debian 13 with Nix (plus Home Manager) in a VM to try it out and have realized that on the real laptop I would need to perform the same tweaks: install special drivers, install the TUXEDO Control Center (albeit using a supported .deb), and add those same kernel params. The only "care-free" option would be using TUXEDO OS, which I could explore. I've run NixOS on e.g. an AMD ThinkPad T14 and it was seamless, with no tweaks needed.
I suppose using something other than NixOS would indeed make some things easier (in my case Vanta, `pinentry` programs, Playwright and Cypress) and would perhaps let me live a more hands-off experience. I currently run `nix flake update` on my system way too often... but other than that, NixOS is not really getting in the way, at least as far as using this laptop goes.
The missing applet for tuxedo-rs would be a great opportunity to "scratch an itch" and learn some new technology.
You have some options on the language you write the applet in if you're not ready to jump in to Rust or C.
Might be a great way to learn some stuff outside of web development.
Good luck.
I also have a InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen 9 (Intel Version) and began adding support for this laptop in NixOS Hardware in early March of this year, including settings sane defaults, loading drivers, and even refactoring/backporting modules for other InfinityBook versions.
[1]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/tree/master/tuxedo/i...
You'd avoid the friction of having to deal with software that doesn't 'just work' on NixOS, but still be able to make use of things like devenv.
Though, an understated benefit from using NixOS is that the specific fixes taken are now available "as code".
The whole point of NixOS is that the entire system is managed by Nix. The entirety of everything is declarative in your configuration file(s) and the entire system can consistently be rebuilt from the configuration. The root system is immutable after being built and as such it is trivial to snapshot.
This isn't just a trivial implementation detail, it changes the entire way that you use the computer. Boot parameters, drivers, installed programs, everything is done via configuration, as opposed to installing Nix on Ubuntu where most stuff is still managed haphazardly and mutably.
You might not think that's good or worth it, but I dispute the notion that installing Nix on a non-NixOS distro gives you the "best of both worlds". They're very different things.
If OP wanted the benefits of the Nix package manager (e.g. per-project development environments, using Nix to build container images, etc.), and didn't want the friction of "how do I run this software on NixOS", I think it's straightforward that using Nix on a non-NixOS distro is a practical choice.
This was perhaps only an issue with launching from nix shell.. but it caused enough friction for me that I ended up switching. It's much easier to use, e.g., steam-run/appimage-run/nix-alien/plain-ole-npx for all special cases on NixOS than the vice-versa issues on non-NixOS imho.
I personally think these issues sound one-off to me, and sticking with NixOS should be fine. But other OS + home manager is completely valid and a great way to use Nix more casually.
I'm not sure what type of software you're talking about, but Linux native software usually works with 'steam-run', which is really the "pretend to be Ubuntu" command.
The original post mentions several examples where he ran into friction. (Monitoring/tracking software, pinentry-kwallet, playwright, tableplus).
A popular escape hatch for NixOS (or other immutable distros) for commandline tools is distrobox. https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox
Another good tip mentioned on the NixOS wiki FAQ is nix-ldd with the dependencies from steam-run.
Still. The benefit of having a declared system configuration does come with the cost of having to put in that effort up front; and a steeper learning curve for knowing how to get around those difficulties compared to more typical distros.
I think the only negative aspect of the approach is the sheer quantity [1] of package installation options available.
[1] https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/
With distributions packages, there's a bigger barrier to entry which is at least better in avoiding sneaky malware from easily creeping in.
Why does a Linux laptop brand ship with an Ethernet NIC (Motorcomm YT6801) that requires an out-of-tree driver? (And a hack to fix ACPI issues.)
I think I know the answer, but...
On Asus netbook, only the original proprietary driver from Asus worked properly, the open source replacement, always kept dying when under load, regardless of how many improvements were made to it.
Something like updating Rust, instead of seconds, took minutes with all the network reconnection happening, or I had to pull the lan cable instead.
Maybe when they get System 76 devices on display.
The learning curve is still extremely steep but after the initial 10 hours of googling it just all falls into place.
Use it as a teacher to learn to understand Nix deeply yourself. I would absolutely recommend everyone to start with the Nix Pills though, it's a great way to learn the language and understand the basic building blocks.
