I have been trying some of the immutable linux OSes because from what I understand they are more modern and feature better security and reliability. What I have found so far is shocking. Half of these don't support my laptop (probably because it's nvidia optimus). Some I tried like guix were very difficult to install, configure, and use with sprase documentation. Good luck trying to use KDE, wayland, or pipewire for example. BlendOS was notably better and could at least run on my laptop but chocked with nvidia driver issues.
I have switched to pop os on my laptop for now but looking at alternatives and what to install on my desktop.
Definitely start with a vm. If you run into troubles let me know. I have a YouTube channel where i post nix content regularly.
That said the docs are not as good as Arch. The best way is to read the
nixpkgs
source. Which is a very high barrier to entry. Otoh, only one repo is required to completely see everything.https://youtu.be/pKVf9x29djs