Nixpkgs can be used without knowing anything about nix. You can install almost anything by just running e.g.:
nix-shell -p cowsay
The requirement for that is the nix package manager but that should be easy to install. But yeah getting into Nixos with flakes and all that stuff can be hard.
Lidarr + Navidrome works flawlessly for me. Navidrome also fetches data from LastFM, such as tending songs and artist info
Right now Debian, but I'll migrate to NixOS pretty soon since it's already running on all of my machines except this server.
I followed this guide from VimJoyer and it works like a charm. Have been using this approach for quite a while now. It just uses raw nix with homemanager
Pretty much, yes. Although most of the guides install nix via curl. You can find the recommended installation procedure on the official nix website.
What I'm right now also realizing is that i switched things up.
nix-shell -p curlcreates a shell with the curl command temporarily available. If you exit this shell it's gone. I use this all the time if if i don't want to pollute my system with programs I only use once. If you want to permanently install something you have to usenix-env -iA nixpkgs.curl. But don't take my words for granted, since I have never tested this on a non-nixos machine.Note: You can also see how to install something by clicking on the package title in the nixpkgs repo.