The subject of this thesis is how the Nix package management system can be applied to manage a whole Linux distribution. Many conventional packagemanagement systems have drawbacks that Nix fixes. But, Nix has never been used to deploy and manage a whole system. In this thesis a proof of concept Linux distribution called NixOS is described. NixOS uses the Nix package management system to manage all software that is installed on the system, including the Linux kernel, all software and system services. Using Nix to manage all software on a system, as is done on NixOS, has several advantages. Developers don’t need to be worried that unwanted dependencies are picked up during the build of a software package, since these are completely eliminated. System administrators get the possibility to deploy services using Nix and how they can immediately use all benefits from Nix, including atomic upgrades and rollbacks, without going through a painful cycle of rolling back a service, with all its, possibly also updated, dependencies. This thesis describes the implementation NixOS, including pitfalls that were encountered and choices that were made. Also shown are some concrete results of running NixOS and how NixOS can be bettered.