I got started on NixOS on a whim really. I distro hopped every so often and like a month ago I wanted to try something different. Already used Arch, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, etc but figured I'd give NixOS a shot.

At first I hated it and it just confused the hell out of me. Then when someone told me I should use flake for my config so I could through it in a repo it just clicked. Once you figure it out and "get it" it just becomes so easy. I'm still a noob at it but I absolutely love NixOS. It just makes everything so easy when you got everything in a flake with a config and home nix. Even backups are easy as you literally can just put it in your config to run. I even have it how where it'll toss out old generations after 10 days automatically.

Plus the fact I can just use stuff without actually installing it is awesome. as a Dev NixOS is brilliant for that.

nixos will affect linux and build systems generally for ever

niche exotic distro nobody knows about

the only one of its kind based around the idea of config-driven reproducible immutable builds

Is NixOS Just Hype?

Pretty sure it's not "hype" at all, but if it was it wouldn't be "just hype".