I first started using nix thinking of it like a version manager also, but that’s not what it is, and thinking of it that way will only bring pain. Nix is a pac

I first started using nix thinking of it like a version manager also, but that’s not what it is, and thinking of it that way will only bring pain. Nix is a package manager (like apt or whatever), and like package managers, it works with a set of vetted, decently verified package versions (NixOS releases). Mostly this is fine. It’s easy to use nix stable for most stuff and nix-unstable for anything where you need newer stuff. You can then configure “overlays” to the set of packages where you specify how to build particular versions where you need it. It took me a long time to make the mental shift from nix being something like pip or npm or asdf or pyenv or whatever to thinking of it like a true linux distribution’s package manager, but it helped everything to click once I did