Yes, you get the same version of deps and the actual software too. For example, wine breaks my game from time to time, but if I got clone my setup I will get the exact version of wine that I use that works, not the latest unstable version

No, it’s also for your system to use locked versions of deps, so if you git clone you get a flakes.lock as well with all the versions. When you install from a git repo you get the same system again

Is it, though?

https://repology.org/repositories/statistics/nonunique

Nonunique means other package managers have it, so it excludes those you said that inflate the user count

You can combine stable and unstable packages since they can have different dependencies

Given this you can have the base system be running the unstable versions, while holding back things like wine from upgrading

Why? If it’s installing singing in the background it’s not stopping me from doing my work

I dispute the needlessly part. NixOS unstable has very new packages, do you’re getting some fresh updates before some other packaging systems.

Is it less “efficient” than waiting for major versions? Of course. But I’m willing to run an update in the background on my desktop to get that new software.

I think the verdict is NixOS is perfect for desktops, since you probably don’t care about data or compiling everything or slight inefficiencies