NixOS 22.05 includes Calamares as a graphical installer and updates its software

Little by little, immutable operating systems are gaining more prominence in the Linux spectrum, so we cannot ignore NixOS 22.05 , the latest version of the distribution built with the Nix package manager and aimed at creating “reproducible, declarative and reliable” , which has been the result of applying 46,727 commits from 1,611 contributors.

NixOS 22.05, codenamed “Quokka” , has updated 10,666 packages, introduced 9,345 new ones, and removed another 9,345. At the module level, 89 new ones have been incorporated and 27 eliminated, with the contributors adding 1,304 new options and eliminating another 359.

Regarding the new features of the system, the highlight is the incorporation of a graphical installer based on Calamares, which has been included in the ISO images with GNOME and KDE Plasma . The objective of this addition is no secret, and it is to facilitate the installation of the system, especially for those people who do not have in-depth knowledge. The popularity of Calamares should make the process easy and familiar to the vast majority of users.

The second major new feature of NixOS 22.05 is Nix 2.8, the latest version of the default package manager, which brings many fixes and improvements to both functionality and performance. At the feature level, the main novelty is the introduction of experimental features called “flakes ” .

NixOS is another distribution that has decided to make the leap to PipeWire as the default sound server, so its corresponding service will enable the WirePlumber session manager by default from this release instead of using ‘pipewire-media-session’ , as the latter has been marked deprecated and its use is not recommended, although it can still be manually enabled.

For the rest, what stands out the most are the updates of the components served, so in NixOS 22.05 we find Linux 5.15 as the kernel, systemd updated to version 250 , PHP 8.1, GNOME 42 with Gedit replaced by the new text editor of the environment and Terminal by Console (or Console), PostgreSQL 14, in addition to KDE Plasma 5.24 along with its usual and official applications.

Full details of NixOS 22.05 are available in the official announcement and release notes , while the system can be obtained in a large number of formats from the download section of the project’s official website (ISO images with GNOME and KDE Plasma are in the “More” section).

The official inclusion of Calamares in NixOS comes at a good time for distribution if you want to compete with the options that are slowly rearing their heads.