this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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But you have! And as said, there are people saying exactly that. BTW I actually understand the difference between NixOS and Arch. I mean you can actually change anything on NixOS and slowly transform it into a regular distribution without what it makes to be a Nix system. I mean if you have root rights on the system, then you could remove what it makes a NixOS and install a different package manager, set it sources up from Arch repositories in example and so fort.
I don't know if everything can be done like that, but theoretically there is no limit in access to any file and data on a Linux distribution. If you have root access. In example, what in particular cannot be changed in NixOS?
Ok, this is getting into macro scale now. They use entirely different filesystems, boot sequences, package databases, and low-level C libraries. So, in that car analogy what you are describing would effectively be changing out 1 or a few parts at a time and iterating over that until no original part exists and then saying you turned a car into a truck because you kept the car radio the same.
Maybe this is a matter of perspective, but at that point I would say you didn't turn a car into a truck, you just built a truck.
EDIT: I would say most people's constraint on being able / not able to convert distros is "within reason". Without that, we might as well just talk about kernel versions because that's ultimately what Linux is not the DEs and package managers and etc,etc.
To your original point that you can't turn one distro into another (which you seem to now disagree with), you can but not always "within reason".
Yes, that's the argument its being made.
I'm NOT (edit: forgot the NOT, lol) the one claiming that, just reiterating whats being said. Because I don't know and want to find it out with discussions. I think it is ridiculous, and don't think anyone should do that. But technically it can be done, seemingly.
I've been thinking more and more about this (the NixOS to Arch) and comments saying "that should be easy".
Dynamic linking creates a catch 22 to all of this.
You have to do the majority of steps live and can't reboot. NixOS doesn't follow FHS, but Arch bootstrapping requires that. If you force-create those directories and try to bootstrap Arch over a live NixOS instance, the binaries you compile will instantly break because they won't be able to find the dynamic linker (ld-linux) or standard C libraries (glibc) in the locations they expect.
At some point you are going to be using Nix's development tools to build out pacman. To get around the previous issues you would drop to a nix-shell to build the environment (which is one really good use of NixOS in general), but then you'd segfault as soon as you tried to use it outside the environment.
Even with the pacman binary present as soon as you rug pull glibc from memory, since pacman is needing the host's instance of that, you'd have a kernel panic.
I was never this specific, but this kind of thought process is what I always had and countered with. I don't think there is evidence this can be done to a degree, to be able to say that the distribution doesn't matter. I don't buy that, just to be clear. Maybe people claiming this are thinking of similar distributions, like Ubuntu to Debian and never had atomic distributions in mind or something wacky as NixOS.
Going back to what the other user mentioned, in the context of how people ask the question, I don't think distro matters. You have new users asking "What is a good distro for playing games? Bazzite or CachyOS?" Both. It doesn't matter, they will play the same.
Kali Linux would also be a completely correct answer to that question. Even back in the day I had Backtrack 5 running Dragon Age 2. And for security testing, what is the best distro? The one that you installed your tools to. Distro A has 200 sec tools pre-installed, Distro B has 400 sec tools pre-installed, but both have the same 10 tools you actively use so they are the same. Arguably neither are the best because that means there is 190 and 390 tools present that are just bloatware.
Out of all the distros, NixOS would actually be the easiest to convert to Arch or some other distro. Other than /etc, it doesn't use the standard FHS paths so you're free to use some other package manager to install whatever you want under /bin, /lib, /usr, et cetera.