Or is the quintessential immutability.

Yes.

It's also a completely different way to handle ... everything.

Do not think about nixos if you want to know what to try for gaming.

Do look at it id you want to learn the ins and outs of ... Well, to be honest nixos. But I've learned a lot about standard paths that everyone expects to be there and hell's loose if they aren't.

Python runs amok if it can't write into it's beloved lib folders, nginx is utterly confused why it can't generate certificates on startup (read only folders), deployment dependencies are absolutely visible - and if you fick up the whole system just goes "nah, take a step back and think about what you just did".

I'm now pushing two years on my server and I'm still not sure if I'd recommend it - but I for sure enjoy it!