I think functional distros like Guix or Nix are just another thing. Their ability of programming , provisioning and deploying software environments is unparalleled. My personal favorite is Guix since, while having less packages than Nix, it has the most consistent experience: everything is in Scheme from the top to the bottom of the distro. Also it pushes really hard on a sane bootstrapping story while allowing for impurity through channels like nonguix .

The main downside is the lack of tutorials and a documentation that’s very intense, let’s say. typical of GNU projects. I suggest the System Crafters youtube channel which has a lot of nice tutorials

with nonguix the lines are like five instead of one, but yes there are less packages than nix. the real selling point imho is how everything is human-sized and consistent

Yes I definitely agree: free software is also a requirement for bootstrappability and reproducibility.

You mean reproducibility and bootstrappability?