bug: manual: how do I know if I'm "following Nixpkgs master or an unstable channel" or "follow a Nixpkgs version 23.11 channel"?

[SIGSTACKFAULT]

Are you following the right branch?

• [X] My Nixpkgs and Home Manager versions are in sync

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the existing issues

Issue description

I'm Extremely New:tm: to NixOs and am attempting to install home-manager. The manual says:

How do I know if which of these applies to me?

This is now a rhetorical question because I asked in the nixos matrix and was promptly told to do sudo nix-channel --list which tells me i follow 23.11. But the manual ought to say that.

Maintainer CC

@considerate (from manual's blame)

System information

- system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 6.1.79, NixOS, 23.11 (Tapir), 23.11.4801.b7ee09cf5614`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.18.1`
 - channels(root): `"nixos-23.11"`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos`

[considerate]

I don't feel confident in deciding how this should be documented. I personally don't use channels. I have a local flake registry with flakes from my system flake.

I understand that improving the initial experience for newcomers is important. Learning nix-related stuff is difficult, not only because there are a lot of new concepts that you need to learn from the very beginning, but also because depending on what you're trying to do it might just be difficult to achieve in nix compared to other solutions.

I would probably advocate to guide beginners to use the most recent stable version (23.11 as of today) and make this a bit more prominent. However, I don't think this is my call to make.

What are your thoughts @rycee ?

[SIGSTACKFAULT]

How about "If you don't know, you're most likley following 23.11"

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