If you're not willing to install a whole new OS, nix , the package manager of nixos, is standalone and can be run in a single user without interferring with system packages. It's a great way to familiarize yourself with the system. [0]<p>I use Nix together with ArchLinux now to set up consistent development environments and it has been great. It's also blazingly fast because of Hydra[1], their continious build system.<p>[0] <a href="http://nixos.org/nix" rel="nofollow">http://nixos.org/nix</a>
[1] <a href="http://nixos.org/hydra" rel="nofollow">http://nixos.org/hydra</a>