this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Is this not solved by using the "unstable" nixpkgs channel or is that something different?
I'm a NixOS newbie and still learning a lot about it haha
The stable branches promise no breaking changes (in configuration options etc.). Unstable is a rolling release with everything that entails (personally I use it on desktops and stable on servers).
The NixOS unstable channel allows you to get the new packages, but what OP wants is also a stable system and NixOS doesn't really offer. NixOS has new releases every six months and only provides security updates for one month after a new release is out. So you'll be updating pretty frequently and things do break in those updates pretty frequently.
Ubuntu LTS in contrast promises security updates for up to 10 years and they have LTS releases every 2 years. So you can basically install it once and forget about it. The downside is that Ubuntu has no way to install new software on the old system by itself, which is why a mix of Ubuntu LTS and Nix might be worth a consideration in some situations, that gives you both a stable base and bleeding edge software.