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 A cleanup effort removed 6,338 outdated packages to keep the repository manageable and secure.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.
As others have commented, the article is a little misleading. Especially to those not familiar with NixOS:
- “The desktop stack is updated to GNOME 49.”
- “Under the hood, the release updates the Linux kernel to 6.17 (with 6.12 LTS also available).”
These changes have been made available through packages in the nixpkgs repo, branched to the 25.11 release.
However, NixOS doesn’t “stack” GNOME into it. Nor does it carry specific Linux kernels “under the hood”.
You can pin any version of any release of any listed package (including kernels) from the nixpkgs repo to your configuration. More specifically even with Flakes, but that’s not even required, if that isn’t your thing.
So for example, I am running a specific host with NixOS 25.11, and Linux kernel 6.17.58 (LTS). (There is a specific use case for me to do so on that particular host.) This runs out of the box due to how I’ve configured NixOS, which is precisely the point of Nix, you configure it how you want it.
How does NixOS ship with anything? It’s all about what you put in the configuration.nix. You even have to specify if you want a WM.
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.)
… or config files floating around in your FHS dirs
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.
I tried installing it for fun and my /home/$user folder is empty. Is that normal? Like there’s no Desktop, Downloads, Documents, etc folders by default. I picked the GNOME desktop environment at install. Never seen that before.
Probably not. There must be something missing in your configuration. Do you have
createHome = truefor your user?When facing issues on nixos, you can easily just share your
/etc/nixos/configuration.nix+ a description of your error + logs and it’ll provide useful context for people. We’ll even be able to spin up a VM with your config to see if the bug can be recreated.
