I spent some time with NixOS trying to make a development environment similar to my Mac. Not suggested for full time desktop use yet.

configuration.nix

# Edit this configuration file to define what should be installed on
# your system.  Help is available in the configuration.nix(5) man page
# and in the NixOS manual (accessible by running ‘nixos-help’).

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  imports =
    [ # Include the results of the hardware scan.
      ./hardware-configuration.nix
    ];

  virtualisation.virtualbox.guest.enable = true;

  boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
  boot.loader.grub.version = 2;
  boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda";
  boot.initrd.checkJournalingFS = false;


  # networking.hostName = "nixos"; # Define your hostname.
  # networking.wireless.enable = true;  # Enables wireless support via wpa_supplicant.

  # Select internationalisation properties.
  # i18n = {
  #   consoleFont = "Lat2-Terminus16";
  #   consoleKeyMap = "us";
  #   defaultLocale = "en_US.UTF-8";
  # };

  # Set your time zone.
  time.timeZone = "US/Central";

  # List packages installed in system profile. To search by name, run:
  # $ nix-env -qaP | grep wget
  nix.binaryCaches = [ http://cache.nixos.org http://hydra.nixos.org ];

  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
    # System Stuff
    powertop gnupg gnupg1 dpkg patchelf binutils

    # CLI Applications
    vim aspell wget zsh unzip which lsof lshw htop curl
    file manpages posix_man_pages telnet traceroute tree keybase oh-my-zsh

    # Development Stuff
    ant maven openjdk gitFull zeal clang cmake nix-repl tmux python python27Packages.pip
    gcc pkgconfig stdenv nox visualvm nodejs erlangR19 lfe

    # X11 Stuff
    chromium keepassx xdg_utils wireshark gdb xscreensaver unclutter
    networkmanagerapplet volumeicon libnotify gnome3.gnome_desktop
    arc-gtk-theme libreoffice xclip
  ];

  nixpkgs.config = {
    allowUnfree = true;
    chromium.enablePepperFlash = true;
    chromium.enablePepperPDF = true;
  };
  
  fonts = {
    enableFontDir = true;
    enableCoreFonts = true;
    enableGhostscriptFonts = true;
    fonts = with pkgs; [
      powerline-fonts
      ubuntu_font_family
    ];
  };

  programs = {
    zsh = {
      enable = true;
      interactiveShellInit = ''
        export ZSH=${pkgs.oh-my-zsh}/share/oh-my-zsh/
        ZSH_THEME="agnoster"
        plugins=(git)
        source $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh'';
      promptInit = "";
    };
  };

  services.xserver = {
    enable = true;
    layout = "us";
    displayManager.gdm.enable = true;
    desktopManager.gnome3.enable = true;
  };

  services.printing.enable = true;
  
  security.sudo = {
    enable = true;
    wheelNeedsPassword = false;
  };

  users.extraUsers.dhable = {
    description = "Dan Hable";
    isNormalUser = true;
    shell = "${pkgs.zsh}/bin/zsh";
    extraGroups = [ "wheel" ];
    uid = 1000;
  };

  # The NixOS release to be compatible with for stateful data such as databases.
  system.stateVersion = "16.09";

}

Things that don't work:

• gitkraken

Things that don't work as well on NixOS as the Mac:

• IntelliJ IDEA
• bazel build scripts