Post #3364494

2026-06-21 05:06 UTC

Because you don’t have access to any part of the system. Again, nobody is saying you can change everything. But you have! And as said, there are people saying exactly that. BTW I actually understand the difference between NixOS and Arch. I mean you can actually change anything on NixOS and slowly transform it into a regular distribution without what it makes to be a Nix system. I mean if you have root rights on the system, then you could remove what it makes a NixOS and install a different package manager, set it sources up from Arch repositories in example and so fort. I don’t know if everything can be done like that, but theoretically there is no limit in access to any file and data on a Linux distribution. If you have root access. In example, what in particular cannot be changed in NixOS?

Replies (2)

@pivot_root@lemmy.world 2026-06-21 05:27

Out of all the distros, NixOS would actually be the easiest to convert to Arch or some other distro. Other than /etc, it doesn’t use the standard FHS paths so you’re free to use some other package manager to install whatever you want under /bin, /lib, /usr, et cetera.

Open ##3364493
@Mordikan@kbin.earth 2026-06-21 06:17

Ok, this is getting into macro scale now. They use entirely different filesystems, boot sequences, package databases, and low-level C libraries. So, in that car analogy what you are describing would effectively be changing out 1 or a few parts at a time and iterating over that until no original part exists and then saying you turned a car into a truck because you kept the car radio the same. Maybe this is a matter of perspective, but at that point I would say you didn't turn a car into a truck, you just built a truck.

Open ##3364613