Explain NixOS on the nixos.org landing page

[flyfloh]

I have been thinking on how we can structure the content on the website to
create less surprises for people interested in NixOS, while also keeping the
importance of Nix (as the underlying & independent tool that makes it all possible).

We have had a number of issues (e.g. #633, #734, #828, #993) and discussions on
Discourse about this topic, which at least hints to the fact that this is a
real issue.

In order to improve the situation I propose to highlight NixOS and its benefits
on the nixos.org landing page. This way, new users' expectations should be
better met. The current landing page is a really good landing page, but it explains in a lot of detail. This in turn creates the problem that new users are confused because they may not yet know what this "Nix" thing is.

It should help to talk more about NixOS on the landing page, but prominently mention nix as the thing that powers it all in the text(s).

See an example proposal (I have not spent much time word-smithing things yet) below:

On the /learn page, we should start at the top with an explanation of what
nix, nixpkgs and NixOS are. Again see the image below for an example text:

I think we should also help people find the NixOS download on the /download
page better. I am not sure what the right approach here is though. One option
would be to create two separate download pages for Nix and NixOS.

I'm willing to work further on this, but before I do I wanted to get a feel for
what the community thinks in general about this direction.

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2025-02-03-marketing-team-minutes/59769/1

[thilobillerbeck]

I just quickly sketched my idea down as a wireframe. The goal in my opinion is to show people that both options exist. Let me know what you think. Maybe we can also continue this explanation further down the page, redoing the whole landing page.

[gilice]

I had a similar idea previously: I think https://nixos.org/explore/ explains Nix(OS) better than the homepage, and maybe could be merged into the homepage as a whole.
I am curious what people think.

[thilobillerbeck]

I think "merging" it would make the landing page pretty long, which is not really what we want to achieve. Though redesigning the homepage to be like explore is definitely something that'd be great imo.

[fricklerhandwerk]

@thilobillerbeck sorry I haven't seen your prior comment and only now stumbled into it. I like the general direction very much and would gladly review a PR to polish the exact wording.