this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
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Distro choice makes a huge difference and it depends on your use case.
Not quite sure what you meant by you'd be SOL if things break?? If you mean with Linux then it's best to go immutable distro, or opensuse, or nixOS, something where you can rollback your system at the next boot and it's all back to normal.
I love NixOS but it's clearly not a good distro to suggest for a first time on Linux.
I found it super straight forward if you know how to seach the package web page and copy paste to your config.
But you are right, the average Windows user won't be Editting configs.
My machines are OpenSUSE. But for my wife, who has zero computer skill, I installed nixOS with the apps she needed for home and work and she has had zero* issues in 5 years, because it just works.
Yes, because you wrote the config and she didn't need anything fancy. Could she write or update the config by herself, or even upgrade?
Between channels and flakes, the old and new CLI, the lack of documentation of a lot of options…
I mean I love it and wouldn't go back but it was a difficult journey, at leat at the beginning. Even today I sometimes find myself having to go read the code because the documentation is lacking.
She couldn't deal with windows UX, so no she wouldn't be configginganythinfg, OPs concern was things breaking, and nix is awesome for that, with the rollbacks if something did