Casey J Robinson nt76022

Summary

After spending significant time using NixOS, I decided to move back to a more traditional Linux distribution. This wasn’t because NixOS is bad — it’s powerful — but because it wasn’t aligned with my current learning and career goals.

What I Loved About NixOS

NixOS is a declarative operating system. Instead of manually installing packages one by one, everything is defined in configuration files.

That means:

• Reproducible systems
• Clean rollbacks
• Immutable infrastructure
• Powerful DevOps-style workflows

It gave me the “immutable system” I always wanted.

Summary

I was getting into trying tmux again. Previously, I tried it without any configuration and without a split keyboard. Now I have a tmux + vim workflow.

Since I am a system administrator, I can’t change the main keybindings of tmux. Even so, it works well for me with a split keyboard because I follow a lot of the Primeagen workflow ideas.

In the past, I would just open another terminal window. That worked, but it was not efficient because I wood take my hands of the keyboard to hover the mouse over the window. In this post, I’ll go through the applications I use and how my workflow fits together.

Why

To remove friction from my daily workflow, to never waste time searching, and to have my environment anticipate my needs.
My desktop is not a playground of floating windows or clutter like Microsoft Windows — it is a streamlined system that has grown over years of refining, testing, and learning from others.

Core Principles

1. Never Search For Anything

• Every app has a home.
• I keep at least three essentials open at all times:
  1. Terminal → to destroy and rebuild my system as needed.
  2. Web Browser → to consume, test, and overload my memory.
  3. Notes App → to capture thoughts, configs, and system insights.
• These live in workspaces 1–3 in Hyprland. No digging. No hunting. Always there.

Philosophy: If it’s important, it already has a place. I’m not “finding” — I’m jumping.

I love NixOS. It’s one of the most unique and powerful Linux distributions out there. The idea of a fully declarative system—where everything is managed in a single configuration file—is amazing. It gives me confidence and clarity. I always know what’s on my machine, where things are configured, and how to recreate it exactly on another system.

But ironically, the same thing I love about NixOS is also why I’m stepping away from it—for now.