> I'd say something implementing the ideas of NixOS, i.e. immutable versioned systems
NixOS isn't immutable, things aren't mounted read only. AFAIK, it can't be setup that way.
> With NixOS, you can upgrade without fear, as you can always roll back to a previous version of your system. Regular Linux distributions, macOS, and Windows make me very nervous because that is not the case.
The store is immutable in the functional programming sense, as the package manager creates a new directory entry for each hash value.
Backups could be an option, but it is much better to have a system where two computers are guaranteed to be running the exact same software if configuration hashes are the same.
In other OSes, the state of your system could depend on previous actions.
> Regular Linux distributions, macOS, and Windows make me very nervous because that is not the case.
I'm personally only really nervous when updating Linux distributions. Besides security updates it usually hardly matters or is noticeable on macOS/Windows (well besides the random UX changes..).
NixOS isn't immutable, things aren't mounted read only. AFAIK, it can't be setup that way.
> With NixOS, you can upgrade without fear, as you can always roll back to a previous version of your system. Regular Linux distributions, macOS, and Windows make me very nervous because that is not the case.
Because you can't roll back to a previous backup?