I am currently using Linux Mint (after a long stint of using MX Linux) after learning it handles Nvidia graphics cards flawlessly, which I am grateful for. Whatever grief I have given Ubuntu in the past, I take it back because when they make something work, it is solid.
Anyways, like most distros these days, Flatpaks show up alongside native packages in the package manager / app store. I used to have a bias towards getting the natively packed version, but these days, I am choosing Flatpaks, precisely because I know they will be the latest version.
This includes Blender, Cura, Prusaslicer, and just now QBittorrent. I know this is probably dumb, but I choose the version based on which has the nicer icon.
For sure certain package managers are better than others, and NIX seems to be in a class of its own.
I don’t know how much time I am willing to invest in NIX, or Guix for that scheme power, but I can do myself a favor experiment with a few VMs.
The way it feels is like getting the benefits of a source-based distro like Gentoo without the tradeoffs of things like compile times.
I like this take. I am reading up on how flatpak works, and what seems to be most important is including the dependencies needed to run an application, regardless of what the system has, which is great.
I still need to try out Gentoo one day… but it seems like Nixos is the new Gentoo?
Idk about “new Gentoo,” as they’re going for different things, for sure, but a lot of the reasons people like Gentoo seem to be true for Nix. Definitely still give Gentoo a try some day.
I used it for a few months and only moved on bc compiling was taking too long and was annoying me :)
The glory and the strife.