NixOS on WSL: The Best of Both Worlds

A while ago, I wrote about my big move from Windows to NixOS chasing that dream of a perfectly declarative, reproducible setup. Everything defined, everything version-controlled, everything mine.

And it worked beautifully… until I wanted to relax.

🎮 Reality Check: Games, Xbox, and the Cost of Purity

Let's be honest I didn't leave Windows because I hated it. I left because I loved control.

But when it came to gaming, NixOS made me work for it. My Xbox wireless controller was a coin toss away from connecting properly. Bluetooth quirks, driver quirks you name it.

Sure, I could have fixed it. But I didn't want my evenings to turn into a Linux troubleshooting marathon when actually what I want to do is just relax.

Dual-booting didn't help either. Every time I needed to jump back into Windows, it felt like a chore saving work, rebooting, logging in again, just to use an app or play a game.

That's when it clicked: I didn't actually want to quit Windows. I just wanted pure Nix inside it.

💡 The Pivot: NixOS, Natively on WSL

So I did what any pragmatic engineer would do I stopped overcomplicating things.

Instead of running Ubuntu + Nix, I installed the official NixOS image directly inside WSL. No layers. No compromise. Just real NixOS running in Windows.

And it's beautifully seamless.

✅ Real NixOS user space ⚙️ Flakes, Home Manager, and full declarative configs 🚀 Lightning-fast inside Windows Terminal

Now I get the exact same reproducible environments I had on bare metal NixOS but with working Xbox wireless, GPU acceleration, and all my games intact.

🧩 My Setup

If you're on WSL 2.4.4 or later, just download the .wsl file from the latest release and double-click it — that's it.

Or do it from PowerShell:

wsl --install --from-file nixos.wsl

wsl --install --from-file nixos.wsl

You can customize the distro name and install path using the --name and --location flags. Once installed, open your new NixOS environment with:

wsl -d NixOS

wsl -d NixOS

For older WSL versions:

wsl --import NixOS $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS nixos.wsl --version 2

wsl --import NixOS $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS nixos.wsl --version 2

Then update the Nix channels:

sudo nix-channel --update

sudo nix-channel --update

Full instructions are here: 🔗 NixOS-WSL Installation Guide (Official)

From there, I drop in my flake.nix and rebuild. A few seconds later my entire development environment is ready, declaratively.

No dual-boot, No driver hunts, No "let me just fix this one thing."

Just productivity.

⚙️ Why It Works So Well

WSL2 has matured it's fast, supports systemd, and integrates tightly with Windows now. NixOS-on-WSL isn't a hack anymore; it's a legit, supported way to run a pure Nix environment inside Windows.

It's the perfect hybrid:

• 🧱 Windows → for games, tools, and media
• 🧬 NixOS (WSL) → for reproducible dev work, scripting, and pet projects.

No trade-offs. No second-guessing.

🪶 The Windows Side

Let's be real Windows still feels bloated out of the box. But you can fix that.

A few PowerShell de-bloat scripts later, and it feels snappy again no telemetry, no preloaded junk, just a clean base system.

That's when the combo really shines: Windows stays light, Nix stays powerful.

💭 Closing Thoughts

Switching back to Windows wasn't defeat it was evolution.

The power of Nix isn't tied to the distro. It's in the mindset reproducibility, control, and declarative design.

Now I get all of that inside a system that handles both work and play without compromise.

So yeah:

I game on Windows, I build on NixOS and they live happily ever after in one machine.

Do you know of any different way, let me know in the comments 🫡