You’ll need: a USB stick (8 GB or more), a backup of anything you care about, about two hours, and a cuppa.
Read this before you install
The installer can wipe your disk. Its Erase disk option deletes everything on the drive, Windows and your files included, and there’s no undo.
- Back up anything you’d miss to another drive or the cloud first.
- If you want to keep Windows, choose Install alongside (or install to a second drive), not Erase disk.
- If your drive is encrypted with BitLocker, save your recovery key from your Microsoft account before you start. Windows may ask for it afterwards.
Round 1 below runs NixOS in a virtual machine, which touches none of this. Start there.
Windows things, and what replaces them
| On Windows | On NixOS | What’s different |
|---|---|---|
| System Restore | Generations in the boot menu | Every change makes a restore point automatically, and you can boot any of them. |
| Downloading .exe installers | One line in your config | No bundled toolbars or installer wizards. |
| Windows Update | nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade | It updates when you run it, never mid-game or at shutdown. |
| The Settings app | configuration.nix (plus your desktop’s settings) | System settings are written down, so a reinstall keeps them. |
| Setting up a new PC | Copy your config, rebuild | The same setup on new hardware, without reinstalling apps one by one. |
Your first evening
- 20 min
Try it in a virtual machine
Install VirtualBox on Windows and run NixOS inside it. Nothing on your computer changes, so break it as much as you like.
- 30 min
Install with the graphical installer
Download the graphical ISO from nixos.org, flash it to a USB stick, boot from it and click through. Pick KDE Plasma if you want something that feels like Windows. Check the disk step twice (see the warning above).
- 15 min
Open your config and add your apps
Find your apps on search.nixos.org and add their names to the
environment.systemPackageslist in/etc/nixos/configuration.nix. - 5 min
Rebuild
Run
sudo nixos-rebuild switch. When it finishes, your apps are in the menu. - 10 min
Roll back, to see that you can
Delete one app from the list and rebuild, so it disappears. Then reboot and pick the previous generation from the boot menu. The app is back. That’s the safety net you’ll rely on later.
Adding your apps looks like this. It’s a few lines added to the file the installer created:
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
firefox
discord
vlc
libreoffice
];
What won't come with you
Better to know now than on day three. These are the gaps, and what people usually use instead.
Adobe apps
No Photoshop or Premiere. Try GIMP, Krita, Darktable, or DaVinci Resolve for video.
Some online games
Kernel anti-cheat titles won’t run. Check the gaming page.
Microsoft Office
The web versions work in a browser. LibreOffice and OnlyOffice cover the rest.
RGB & peripheral apps
Vendor tools rarely support Linux. OpenRGB and Piper handle most lights and mice.
Keeping Windows as well
You can dual-boot: both systems stay installed and you choose one each time you switch on. It’s a sensible way to start if you rely on a game or app from the list above. The NixOS Wiki has a dual-booting guide that covers the details.