It's been about a year since I switched to #NixOS and I must say it's the #Linux distro I've had the least problems with. Which says a lot considering I've also used Ubuntu, Linux Mint and Manjaro, all of which put more emphasis on being easy to use, besides a bunch of nerd shit like Arch, Gentoo and Exherbo.
My experience is that a distro is either easy to install and configure on a basic level but absolutely shits itself or presents many blockades when you attempt to veer off the beaten path (by installing a version of a package that is not outdated by 3 years, for example), like the former ones, or it's just painful for everything, basic or not, and actively discourages its use, like the latter ones.
NixOS is the exception, apart from the initial installation and configuration which require experience, all system management is reduced to changing a single well-designed config file and letting the nix modules do their thing.
And it works. Great distro, recommend, 9/10 (point substracted for occasionally inadequate documentation)
@Amikke that was a good enough recommendation for me to start researching it - so far I'm reasonably happy with Mint but you are absolutely correct that installing up-to-date packages can be a real pain. It looks like NixOS has its own specific package system though. Can you share how you've found that to work? I've found that most of the little bespoke distros that don't just inherit a major distro's repositories leave out software I want.
@Amikke
I can't seem to find the diagram, but NixOS actually has the most number of native apps available of all distributions. Arch's claim to fame is AUR, which are Arch User apps (aka not native).
And with the latest release of 22.05 it is actually quite a breeze to create the initial installation, with Calamares ✌️😎
@khird
@RyuKurisu here is the graph: https://repology.org/repositories/graphs
NixOS is way out there far away from most popular distros.
You can search packages here: https://search.nixos.org/packages
@khird I was worried about that, but no, I haven't yet encountered a single missing package. I assume it's a combination of a package system that's nice to work with and a dedicated community.