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Life & fun · January 29, 2026

I made a dual-bootable NixBSD (NixOS and FreeBSD) image

I've been working on getting NixBSD (Nix package manager + FreeBSD) to boot alongside NixOS on a shared ZFS pool. The result is a <2GB disk image you can try in QEMU or virt-manager. What works: - GRUB chainloads FreeBSD's bootloader - Both systems share a ZFS pool - Everything is defined in a single Nix flake - Fully reproducible builds (some dependencies are now cached on Cachix) Planned: - Support native compilation of NixBSD (currently cross-compiled on Linux) - Many shortcuts were taken to get this working, needs lots of cleanup - Add a semi-automated installer like nixos-wizard Try it:…

I made a dual-bootable NixBSD (NixOS and FreeBSD) image launched on January 29, 2026 with 9 votes, #1,189 of 14,584 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.

Visit github.com ↗Alternativestop 8% of January 2026

What it does

NixBSD bootable image. Contribute to jonhermansen/nixbsd-demo development by creating an account on GitHub.

A reproducible dual-boot system combining NixOS and NixBSD on a single ZFS pool, with GRUB chainloading the FreeBSD bootloader. # Using libvirt/virt-manager: # - Firmware: UEFI # - Disk bus: SATA # - Attach the .img file as a disk # Or with QEMU directly: qemu-system-x86_64 \ -enable-kvm \ -m 2048 \ -bios /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd \ -drive file=nixos.root.img,format=raw Default credentials: nixos / nixos (or root / toor ) nix build . # zfsImage # Result: ./result/nixos.root.img Dependencies are cached at jonhermansen.cachix.org . This is experimental software. NixBSD can only be cross-compiled from Linux at thisfrom github.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

I've been working on getting NixBSD (Nix package manager + FreeBSD) to boot alongside NixOS on a shared ZFS pool. The result is a <2GB disk image you can try in QEMU or virt-manager. What works: - GRUB chainloads FreeBSD's bootloader - Both systems share a ZFS pool - Everything is defined in a single Nix flake…

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