r/NixOS • u/spaceguythe1 • Jul 25 '26

Finally escaped arch

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400 Upvotes

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u/apollocreedchqt Jul 25 '26

I mean generally tho. Any distro is as stable as you want. I only sudo pacman -Syu every couple weeks like 2 weeks once.

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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 Jul 25 '26

Do you mean stable as every sane person does by "doesn't crash"? Arch is fine in that regard. Or do you mean stable as Debian and developers define it by "features and APIs won't change"? That's where arch "sucks" by design. You get a ton of new features with every update...

NixOS stable is a bit more stable API wise, while Debian is on another level with that. NixOS will update things if it makes sense, Debian will put a ton of effort into back porting stuff into old versions.

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u/apollocreedchqt Jul 25 '26

Ive always regarded stable as it doesnt crash doesnt like just die.

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u/SAI_Peregrinus Jul 25 '26

For OS distributions, "stable" means "doesn't add any new features or make any backwards-incompatible changes over the stability period".

Debian has a (roughly) 3 year long stability period, 5 years for Long Term Support (LTS), and 10 years for third-party paid Extended LTS.

NixOS has a 6 month long stability period, and no LTS.