From NixOS to CachyOS: why I left NixOS (and why not pure Arch)

This wasn't a decision I made lightly, and it doesn't mean NixOS is bad. On the contrary, I love it. Still, I hit a point where being that declarative — where absolutely everything had to be done "the Nix way" — just wore me out.

The strong points of NixOS (what I'll miss)

• The declarative superpower: Having a declarative environment guarantees I can replicate my system on any PC if I decide to wipe it. It's not the only good thing about Nix, but it gives you real peace of mind.

• Automatic snapshots: Being able to roll back to a previous system image when something breaks is a delight. Zero panic.

• Pinning nixpkgs versions: This one fascinated me. Locking in a specific commit in my flake to make sure everything works without surprises is a huge win.

If I liked it so much, why did I leave?

Look, NixOS is almost the perfect system for me — I have no complaints about its performance. The real issue is that, because it's such a closed environment (sandboxing) and strictly follows the Nix Way (breaking with the traditional FHS standard), configuring and declaring every single one of my dev projects became a chore.

Sometimes you just want to clone a repo and start coding without fighting the environment. I know I'll come back at some point; in fact, I left all my dotfiles nicely declared in a private repo, just in case.

Where am I now?

Before NixOS, I had already used Arch Linux for 3 years. This time, though, I didn't want to waste time configuring a clean install from scratch because I need to push my project, Notisian, forward as fast as possible. I don't have time to lose.

So I went with the minimal version of CachyOS. To manage the system, I decided to automate and declare everything using an agent to write my config files in dcli by TheBlackDon (and no, they aren't paying me for the mention xD). I know there are other options out there, but this one clicked for me simply because it uses Lua as its configuration language in the advanced version.

In the end, I landed the balance I was looking for: CachyOS's speed and optimizations, Arch's no-friction dev workflow, and a declarative touch thanks to DCLI (Lua).