NixOS-WSL VS impermanence

I have not used it but this might be what you are looking for: https://github.com/nix-community/NixOS-WSL

You could also install the nix package manager on Ubuntu.

This project began as I didn't like that NixOS-WSL used systemd in the background, so I made this for myself. Some of the advantages: faster boot time, smaller image size and a FHS distro in the background, that lets you load dynamically linked binaries (for example, to have VSCode remote working OOTB).

There's a community port of NixOS to WSL2, complete with systemd support, plus Docker Desktop support and some other goodies: https://github.com/nix-community/NixOS-WSL

Nix also works on other WSL distros, provided they're using WSL2.

Nix supports cross-compiling Windows binaries as well. I know some people use it for that.

There is no 'native' support— you can't use Nix as an alternative to Winget or Chocolatey on Windows. Right now a lot of important stuff in Nixpkgs depends on a POSIX shell and Unix coreutils implementation for the basic build environment, and that's shared between many operating systems. Trying to fit Windows into that doesn't really make s sense, and there's not really any momentum behind the idea of using any particular other runtime environment (could be a scripting language instead of a shell + coreutils) for those basic builders.

But it's conceivable that some day, one or more companies using Nix on WSL might see vaiue in taking that extra step and put together a Nix-based package collection for Windows and help get the Nix Windows port out the door.

Basically, I managed to get NixOS inside WSL2 by using this: https://github.com/Trundle/NixOS-WSL

But whenever I try running code . with nixos-wsl(https://github.com/Trundle/NixOS-WSL), the error: `code: command not found` is thrown, also, whenever I try to open nixos-wsl from vscode, it does not work and the terminal throws a bunch of errors?

You might want to set up NixOS with impermanence, with something like https://github.com/nix-community/impermanence. Install an easy to use desktop environment like ElementaryOS, and configure NixOS with or without Flatpak, if you want to give the user the ability to install new software or not. Then set up automatic updates, automatic garbage collection and you have a truly stable system.

I would not call these projects unbelievable, but they are neat.

- Opt-in state: https://github.com/nix-community/impermanence and https://grahamc.com/blog/erase-your-darlings/

That way will work - I use the impermanence module which works similarly but allows to hide mounts.

This is indeed a blind spot. Thanks for pointing that out! Silverblue -to my knowledge- doesn't do a lot to address this. Though, 3rd-party tools like Home Manager and the suite of applications developed by the folks over at uBlue might be able to limit this to a minimum. Though I'm not sure if it surpasses NixOS in this regard; for the uninitiated. Though, to my knowledge, this requires special attention and depends on the specifics of the NixOS system in question.

[3]: https://github.com/nix-community/impermanence

I have recently stumbled upon Impermanence - modules to help you handle persistent state on systems with ephemeral root storage, and the concept seems quite nice.

I haven't used it yet but nix-community/impermanence has a home-manager module that might be useful.

Some files in /etc (like saved networks) will still not be managed by NixOS, if you want to have full control over them use Impermanence

{ imports = [ (modulesPath + "/installer/scan/not-detected.nix") "${builtins.fetchGit { url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware.git"; }}/system76" "${builtins.fetchGit { url = "https://github.com/nix-community/impermanence.git"; }}/nixos.nix" ];