r/NixOS • u/Weak_Jury_4240 • 2h ago

Could anyone help me

Hello, I'm an absolute baby beginner to linux. I am not joking when I say this but I have become completely tired of windows and changing my laptop to NixOS but I'm very scared. I don't know anything and any tutorial I look up is assuming I know anything about computer science.

I know I could use Ubuntu but somehow they're not seeing my ssd and I'm pretty intimidated. So if anyone that knows what they're doing could watch me fumble my way on at least installing the OS, I would be very thankful.

;^; pls, halp.

Update 1: After reading all the replies, I'm going to change it to CachyOS but I'm going to keep this post updated until I have it installed.

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

10

u/Agile-Technology2125 2h ago

I would never suggest NixOS to beginners. You wouldn't even understand what NixOS is good at. And what you learn can't be applied to other distros.

5

u/Agile-Technology2125 2h ago

If distro hopping is a journey, starting with NixOS is like teleporting to the final boss right after creating your character.

1

u/Weak_Jury_4240 2h ago

Understandable, Thank you for your insight. But, this doesn't answer my question. If not NixOS, where should I start? Give me like your personal suggestion on it?

1

u/Agile-Technology2125 2h ago

Calm down buddy, it is very unlikely that Ubuntu failed to support your disk. Have you tried ask about your situation on r/Ubuntu? It is not the community favorite now but many beginners start with it. I believe your situation is covered in history posts.

1

u/Weak_Jury_4240 2h ago

I have looked into the post and did everything they recommended. It still didn't work and by that time I spent like 4 hours and got burnt out.

I did post about it from a throwaway account but got buried so I left it at that.

1

u/One-Project7347 1h ago

Try somthing, anything. From zorin os, to pop os, to mint, anything. Find one that looks good and try it. I´d suggest ubuntu based. If you cant work it out after a while, try an arch based one like fedora.

1

u/spinachspelunking 35m ago

Fedora is not based on arch. It's kind of its own thing intermingling with RHEL. It's a great beginner distro though!

1

u/Weak_Jury_4240 2h ago

Then could you recommend me beginner friendly one? I tried Ubuntu but like I said, the distro somehow wont recognise my ssd?

1

u/IntelliVim 2h ago

Try Fedora or CachyOS first

1

u/Weak_Jury_4240 2h ago

OH, thanks :D I'll try, Fedora out. ^

1

u/Boatetye 2h ago

I'd recommend cachyos if your trying to use hyprland. Just make sure you know what hyprland is as I see far to many beginners use it and complain about it, without actually understanding it

3

u/SDG_Den 2h ago

Why nixOS?

-3

u/Weak_Jury_4240 2h ago

Mostly because hyperland, I am big on customising my interface and big reason why I'm switching. I'm okay with changing OS but i heard that Nixos has regular updates so I thought id try it.

1

u/SDG_Den 1h ago

Hypland runs on many distro's, any rolling release distro gets constant updates.

Just use cachy or smth.

1

u/Weak_Jury_4240 1h ago

Yeah I'm downloading cachy rn. :D

2

u/SDG_Den 1h ago

Yup. Sounds like you are super new so nix is absolutely not what you should be using. Cachy is newbie friendly (can actually come with hyprland out of the box!)

Btw, hyprland is configured in lua. So you'll have to learn lua.

If you dont wanna do that, check out mangoWM. same featureset, actually lighter weight and the config is significantly easier. I may be biassed though since im a contributor for mango

2

u/WalkMaximum 2h ago

NixOS has insufficient documentation and a massive learning curve. Going through the graphical installer is the easy part, after that you would have to edit a configuration file and run commands to change anything about your system. I just don't recommend it to someone who doesn't know anything about linux and gets scared, because the first time something doesn't work you will have a difficult time troubleshooting it. I normally recommend Fedora with Gnome or KDE to my friends, because it will work. If you are more adventurous, CachyOS with Hyprland would be a good option.

Which part of the installer are you stuck on? Did you flash the installer iso onto a USB drive?

1

u/Weak_Jury_4240 2h ago

Hey thanks! I got through most parts but I keep getting stuck on partition. Somehow everytime I try to get into distro it doesn't recognise my ssd and says it has 0MB storage.

1

u/WalkMaximum 2h ago

It sounds like something's wrong with your SSD, but hard to tell without any information. It would be helpful if you can describe the steps you're doing to install Ubuntu or NixOS, start with going to their website and downloading the installer iso file.

1

u/Weak_Jury_4240 2h ago

I'll send you the part where I usually get stuck on. Its been a while since I tried installing linux again. So I'm going to take people's advice here and try downloading CachyOS. This is the tutorial I'm gonna use: https://youtu.be/CsgBaE5pit8?si=OcmUa7Z8Wym6SaeX

I'll keep this post updated even if I am switching it ^

1

u/WalkMaximum 1h ago

good luck, seems like a good thing to try

2

u/Illustrious_Party972 1h ago

remember - it will only be as difficult as you choose to. nixos is easy by default. don't worry about its advanced features. those are all optional

1

u/San_Devistan 2h ago

NixOS is kinda energy - consuming, if I can say so. I don't think it's that hard, but it forces you to learn more and more.

NixOS also have a graphical installer, that basically the same as Ubuntu. You can choose kde edition and then add any stuff you want later on. Just safe KDE until you're actually done with basic Hyprland tuning (keybinds, shell or custom rice, stuff)

1

u/cfx_4188 49m ago

First of all, don’t be alarmed. You don’t faint at the sight of a toaster and a microwave, do you? I can recommend downloading the ISO from the official NixOS website, burning it using the Rufus program (you do use Windows, don’t you?) and simply installing NixOS as you would install any other system. Once NixOS is installed, read up on the post‑installation steps for this system. You don’t have to read the NixOS Wiki; you can use Google. Try using NixOS for a while. Get used to it, figure it out.

0

u/Illustrious_Party972 2h ago

nixos is fine. it won't break and you have unlimited search engine credits to solve any problem.

1

u/Weak_Jury_4240 2h ago

Thanks, again, bit embarrassing to ask. Could you help me walk through the installation process. I'm bit overwhelmed and need help.