We probably should be training the students to use the AI as a tool

I used NixOS for a couple of years. My experience is like this:

1. It is a rolling release (mostly)
2. You write a declarative configuration for your system, e.g., my config will say I want Neovim with certain plugins, and I can also include my Neovim configuration
3. It is stable, and when it breaks it is easy to go back
4. Packages are mostly bleeding edge