Six months after the previous 25.05 “Warbler” release, the new stable version, NixOS 25.05 “Xantusia,” is officially here. Targeted at advanced users and developers, NixOS bets on an immutable design and an atomic update model, emphasizing reproducibility and reliability with the Nix package manager.
Nixpkgs adds 7,002 new packages and updates 25,252 existing entries. A cleanup effort removed 6,338 outdated packages to keep the repository manageable and secure. On the NixOS side, the release introduces 107 new modules, adds 1,778 configuration options, and removes older, unused components.
The desktop stack is updated to GNOME 49. This version ends X11 session availability, includes a new video player and document viewer, and ships a redesigned calendar application. Other applications across the GNOME suite receive updates as part of the regular upstream cycle.
But it’s worth noting that as with regular Linux distro, you can get easily switch the DE. I think it’s only two lines of config.
And unlike a regular Linux distro, you’ll have zero leftover systemd units or config files floating around in your FHS dirs. (You’ll have the binaries for Gnome sitting in /nix/store until you do a GC, so you can still quickly switch back if you want to.)
Mostly true, but unless you’re doing an impermanence setup, programs still poop random files all over the place. Especially in home and other various places like /var/lib /var/cache.