[balder1991]

Even assuming it’s not malicious, the script can mess up your environment configuration.

[exe34]

I'm so thankful for nixos for making it hard for me to give in to that temptation. you always think "oh just this once". but with nixos I either have to do it right or not bother.

[hombre_fatal]

NixOS gives you a place to configure things in a reproducible way, but it doesn’t require you do it.

[maccard]

So can a random deb, or npm package, or pip wheel? You’re either ok with executing unverified code or not - piping wget into bash doesn’t change that

[dubi_steinkek]

Maybe they can with postinstall scripts, but they usually don't.

For the most part, installing packaged software simply extracts an archive to the filesystem, and you can uninstall using the standard method (apt remove, uv tool remove, ...).

Scripts are way less standardized. In this case it's not an argument about security, but about convenience and not messing up your system.