New NIXOS 24.11 release has been announced, offering a unique distribution based on the package manager nix with various features to simplify system setup. In NIXOS, system configuration is managed through a single configuration file, allowing easy rollback to previous configurations, support for multiple system states, and installation of individual packages by users. The latest version includes installation images for X86_64 and ARM64 architectures with KDE, GNOME, and a console version available.
When using NIX, package assemblies are stored in a separate directory within /NIX/Store, each package having a unique hash. The package manager retrieves assemblies from the NIXOS project assembly service hydra if not already available. The GNU GUIX package manager also utilizes a similar approach, with package collections hosted in the nixpkgs repository.
The latest release of NIXOS 24.11 brings several key innovations:
- Addition of 8141 packages, removal of 3970 packages, and update of 20975 packages with contributions from 2669 developers. 119 new modules were added while 30 modules were removed.
- Introduction of KDE Plasma 6.2 and GNOME 47 for user environments, with inclusion of NIRI composite server in Wayland.
- Inclusion of 63 new services such as Cyrus IMAP, Collabora Online, and Surficata.
- Default usage of Pipewire multimedia server over Pulseaudio in graphic sessions.
- Enhanced support for MacOS platform in NIXPKGS repository, improving assembly environment and simplifying rules for MacOS application assembly. Support for MacOS 10.x branch will be discontinued from this version onwards.