I can’t see that being a reasonable approach for them to take, tbh. One option with TPM is that your system logs in automatically to the desktop, in which case they can just turn it on and use it normally. The other is that it requires a password at some point during startup, to which they could just use a (hardware) keylogger.
I’ve actually been getting into NixOS recently; interested in replacing an old server I’ve had for like 10 years with something I can just build from a bunch of config files.
Can confirm it is confusing and I have no idea how anything works. :D
In my searches, I’ve come across nixos.org/guides/nix-pills/ , which I’ve gone through a few chapters of - seems good so far.
Long time Mint user here. Switched to them ages ago because they didn’t try to “revolutionize” the desktop in the whole Gnome 3/Ubuntu Unity era, and the OS was close enough to Ubuntu that instructions and software for Ubuntu would run on it. Since then, it’s only been getting better, and they haven’t been accumulating drama (Snap, telemetry, whatever Redhat is doing, etc.). like the more popular distros have been.
I’d recommend it to new people because it Just Works, has flatpack support, is similar enough to Windows and the many Ubuntu-specific instructions in the wild apply to it.