Overview

Arch Linux

Stacks563

Followers555

Votes108

NixOS

Stacks112

Followers96

Votes12

Arch Linux vs NixOS: What are the differences?

Introduction

Arch Linux and NixOS are two popular Linux distributions known for their unique approach to package and system management. While both aim to provide a customizable and efficient operating system, there are several key differences that set them apart.

Package Management: Arch Linux utilizes the Pacman package manager, which follows a rolling release model and focuses on simplicity. It provides a wide range of packages from its official repositories, as well as from the Arch User Repository (AUR), where users can submit their own packages. On the other hand, NixOS employs the Nix package manager, which takes a purely functional approach. It allows for atomic upgrades and rollbacks, package reproducibility, and easy management of multiple package versions and configurations.
System Configuration: Arch Linux maintains a traditional approach to system configuration, where users manually modify configuration files to personalize their system. While this offers great flexibility, it can also lead to complex setups and potential conflicts. In contrast, NixOS adopts a declarative approach to system configuration using the NixOS module system. Users define their desired system state in a configuration file, which is then used to build the entire system. This approach ensures reproducibility and simplifies system management.
System Upgrades: Arch Linux provides frequent updates through its rolling release model, where users can receive the latest software versions as soon as they become available. This offers access to the latest features but can also introduce the possibility of occasional breakages due to compatibility issues. NixOS, on the other hand, ensures system upgrades are atomic and reproducible. It allows users to easily roll back to previous system configurations if any issues arise during an upgrade.
Package Overlapping: In Arch Linux, packages often depend on shared system libraries, resulting in shared dependencies among various packages. This can cause issues when one package requires a specific version of a library that conflicts with another package's requirement. NixOS avoids this problem by employing the Nix package manager, which isolates packages and their dependencies, allowing multiple versions of the same library to coexist without conflict.
Security and Stability: Arch Linux has a reputation for being a lightweight and minimalist distribution that provides users with a high degree of control over their system. However, this also means that Arch Linux relies heavily on user expertise for system configuration and maintenance, which can potentially lead to security vulnerabilities and system instability if not properly managed. NixOS, on the other hand, prioritizes system stability and reproducibility by employing declarative configuration and atomic upgrades, which can reduce the likelihood of conflicts and stability issues.
Community and Support: Arch Linux has a large and active community of users, providing extensive documentation, forums, and wikis. It also benefits from a wide range of third-party tools and scripts developed by the community. NixOS, although less popular compared to Arch Linux, also has an active and growing community that offers support through forums and documentation. However, due to its more unique and specialized approach, the NixOS community may be smaller, leading to potentially fewer user-contributed resources.

In summary, Arch Linux and NixOS differ in their package management systems, system configuration approaches, system upgrades, package overlapping handling, security and stability focus, and the size of their communities. Arch Linux emphasizes simplicity, manual configuration, and frequent updates, while NixOS focuses on atomic upgrades, declarative configuration, and package isolation.

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Advice on Arch Linux, NixOS

Simon

Developer Advocate at k6 / Load Impact

Mar 7, 2020

Decided

At the moment of the decision, my desktop was the primary place I did work. Due to this, I can't have it blow up on me while I work. While Arch is interesting and powerful, Ubuntu offers (at least for me) a lot more stability and lets me focus on other things than maintaining my own OS installation.

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Detailed Comparison

Arch Linux	NixOS
A lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.	It is a Linux distribution with a unique approach to package and configuration management. Built on top of the Nix package manager, it is completely declarative, makes upgrading systems reliable, and has many other advantages.
-	DevOps-friendly; atomic upgrades and rollbacks
Statistics
Stacks 563	Stacks 112
Followers 555	Followers 96
Votes 108	Votes 12
Pros & Cons
Pros 17 Large Community 15 Package Manager 13 Customizable 12 Rolling Release 11 Bleeding Edge Cons 4 Systemd only 3 Only X86_64 architecture is offically supported 1 Comparatively fewer offically supported packages 1 System maintenance 1 No Guided Installation	Pros 3 Atomic upgrades 2 Reproducible environment 2 Declarative system configuration 2 Rollback for any changes 2 Multi-user package management
Integrations
No integrations available	Apache Tomcat PostgreSQL

What are some alternatives to Arch Linux, NixOS?

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers.

Debian

Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.

Fedora

Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that provides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form. Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating system.

Linux Mint

The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.

CentOS

The CentOS Project is a community-driven free software effort focused on delivering a robust open source ecosystem. For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon, along with extensive resources to build, test, release, and maintain their code.

Linux

A clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

CoreOS

It is designed for security, consistency, and reliability. Instead of installing packages via yum or apt, it uses Linux containers to manage your services at a higher level of abstraction. A single service's code and all dependencies are packaged within a container that can be run on one or many machines.

Gentoo Linux

It is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need.

Alpine Linux

Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox.

Manjaro

It is an accessible, friendly, open-source Linux distribution and community. Based on Arch Linux, it provides all the benefits of cutting-edge software combined with a focus on getting started quickly, automated tools to require less manual intervention, and help readily available when needed.