NixOS: A peak at a MASSIVE rabbit hole!

[@geno_purple]

Despite how little documentation there is and how frustrating it is to learn a new way for so many things on linux I've found nixos to be surprisingly comfy after the adjustment period. Package availability has been amazing and I think being able to tinker without fear leads me to learning more, faster. I'm still unsure if I'll find having to know another language for configuring worth it long term but nix looks promising as a more reproducible alternative to docker.

[@eygs493]

same bro0

[@wileysneak]

why more reproducable than docker?

[@9alexua9]

​@@wileysneaknix is reproducible up to hash with exact versions of packages unlike docker

[@Cadexy5ew]

@@wileysneakbecause docker is Microsoft garbage that they don’t want to be reproducible lol. Microsoft doesn’t want people to know that Unix systems are generally easily reproducible

[@TheLonelyMoon]

I love how I can use NixOS like an absolute noob, going down the flatpak route and/or not use home-manager/flakes. So that I can slowly work my way to learning it. I have a desktop system at home and a laptop at the dorm. I think if I master Nix, it's going to be quite helpful. It's immutable and reversible, so pretty good for someone who loves tinkering like me

[@notcorrect]

After spending a week getting a nix configuration with flakes and modularity working, I've fully switched over, and I'm not looking back. It took a while but it worked out fantastic. Now that it's all working the way I like, I can be more productive and learn faster without concern of breaking my system. The ability to spin up a different machine, VM or container with all my stuff just working is a dream. Having a shell.nix file in the places that require seldom used configurations is better in so many ways compared to using docker for the same purpose.

[@biscotty6669]

NixOS is unlike any other distro by nature and should only be installed by people who want a declarative, immutabile and replicable OS and who are willing to learn a new OS, or at least a fundamentally different approach to Linux. Declarativity, immutability, functional programming... these have major implications on how you use Linux and it's certainly not for everyone. It's not at all like switching from Ubuntu to Fedora or Arch.

[@__-nt2wh]

You enjoy NixOS if you are interested in system tinkering and having a well defined and source-controllable configuration that you can deploy to various machines. If you just want an OS that "gets out of your way," you are most likely not the target audience.

[@kapcioszek2137]

I tried using NixOS because I was hooked with its ideology, but then I realised I didnt need any of its features too much and doing anything was too much of a hassle to relearn. Tho I hope I can come back to it someday and try appreciating it again.

[@randomouse]

I had exactly the same experience. I just personally didnt have too big of a need for the features but I loved the idea

[@asura5648]

100% its jus hyped up

[@crackedoutofmymind-h8m]

fk you go use arch which breaks your system every 2 seconds 😂

[@kapcioszek2137]

​ @user-vw2qt8vp8e Why be so negative? A tool is a tool and everybody uses whatever they like and what fits their needs. Remember Linux is awesome, and so are you!

[@kelvinpina3392]

the same I'm about to give up and install debian or arch

[@apathydriven]

Nice video there! NixOS is so cool and useful, but I too feel that it is extreme in it's way of doing things and that there are more practical ways of doing system/package management with other less deal-breaking trade-offs.

[@darth-tilde]

interesting points. Why do you avoid flakes on purpose? You can have both stable and unstable packages, have one .config easily manage multiple machines and switch packages based on current user or hostMachine etc. so much fun stuff. I have been on nixOs for a few weeks now and I love it ... I cant imagine not using nix lol. My experience so far - Hyprland wm: (preferred choice) + Flake vs default config (flake) + Nix install with calamares GUI...vs Minimal cli. (cli) + Home-manager as nixOs module vs standalone. (depends - using standalone) + Nix develop / shell is very cool . previously on arch btw

[@adonespitogonaif]

A just went away with arch + btrfs with system snapshots with the ability to rollback if something breaks after upgrade or system change.

[@opposite342]

3:58 you haven't used emerge(portage) then

[@scartyz762]

installing the binaries of some packages is even slower than compiling the same packages on portage for whatever reason but it is still the best package manager on linux desktop

[@ArtemSayapov]

Gnome's recommended because I guess they maintain it better. When I tried the KDE version, I booted into something reminiscent of Arch linux install screen

[@philosophia5577]

bro got burned soo hard he switched to ubuntu

[@Redyf]

OMG NIXOS MENTIONED

[@IogaMaster]

Yup, i knew I’d find you here 😂

[@crackedoutofmymind-h8m]

​@@IogaMasterfound ya 😂

[@vimjoyer]

I'm here too now

[@dionysis_]

I will be using it for a server so I think for that it will be perfect 🙂

[@whoman0385]

i actually cried when I saw that you put everything in the configuration.nix file, you can define imports and split things into multiple nix files, it makes things a lot more readable.

[@vignesh306]

The title should be "peek" (not tryna be rude, but it's not correct 😅). Cool video tho!

[@soyitiel]

Ah, peek as in taking a look, right? Not peak as in the top of a mountain. English isn't my native language, so I'm asking

[@rexielscarlet6017]

@@soyitiel yep exactly

[@NeoAemaeth]

Wrecked my arch install ironically by using timeshift somehow. Rebuilding the system was a pain and I always started sweating during updates ever since. Switching to Nix was the best decision ever.

[@Ryan-uo3ep]

"I stopped using nixos" hm? "flakes which i avoided at all costs" ah that makes sense :D /s Trust me you'll eventually get sick of your stuff breaking on other distro's and maybe then you can come back :)

[@edwolt]

I stand the bugs related to linkage because I like the replicability of the NixOS. But there are a lot of problems with linkage that make things really hard to do, and you need to be a nix developer to correct, which I am not.

[@TheWindowsHero]

Nice video!

[@TheGeorey]

There’s an imposter among us

[@KinHallen]

eww one space indenting 1:48

[@MrVampify]

Great video and does cover some painpoints I think should be addressed. that being said, give nix another shot and don't avoid flakes. flakes solve a lot of problems with nix out of the box. I've been using nix about 6 months now and struggled at first with the channels paradigm. flakes pretty much entirely solves that now. mainly the imperitive issues with channels, but a lot under the hood was re-orchestrated to solve issues. for ex. in nix channels the built apps would be the correct versions when first installed but could change if you install them at different times. This means spicetify can find the files it needs because it knows the hash already. That said, spicetify should be building the theme at build time of spotify as the nix store is immutable. This can be done in the build steps for the derivation in a flake. Failing all of that, nothing is stopping you from doing imperitive things with other packaging like flatpak, spicetify would work simpy as that. declare spicetify in your nix config, install spotify with flatpak, spicetify-cli the flatpak.

[@Dr-Zed]

Avoiding flakes at all costs? Sounds like a skill issue to me.

[@abeldavid7501]

Aguante Nixos locooo

[@adjbutler]

NixOS! NixOS! NixOS!

[@um8078]

WHY IS THE MUSIC SO CREEPY

[@rimenahi]

It sounds pretty mysterious and mirrors edge style to me.

[@putputlawch6770]

There are a lot of inconveniences especially regarding the FHS non-compliance, but a slow package manager is not one of them in my experience. But maybe that's because I often "install" applications temporarily (e.g. with nix-shell -p spicetify-cli) which are cleaned up eventually after I leave the shell. This prevents cluttering up my system and only if I know I'll need a program regularly I add them to the system config or the user-specific config (via home-manager). Oh yea and I should mention the configuration option programs.nix-ld, which helps a lot with running random binaries which need linking.

[@Tobi-ci3ns]

The red flag for me is that Nix has its own programming language for the configuration file. I love the idea of a declarative OS, but I'd like to see something that prefers existing technologies rather than reinventing the wheel.

[@Ryan1456100]

There's a GNU project named Guix that uses Lisp (specifically Scheme) for its configuration language that may interest you?

[@crackedoutofmymind-h8m]

cope sethe, so does neovim

[@angeldude101]

Nix using it's own programming language is controversial, but it's not that hard to learn once you realise it's just an unholy fusion of JSON with Haskell.

[@exolyne.]

​@@crackedoutofmymind-h8m neovim uses lua though?

[@Dr-Zed]

You can literally import json vor toml files into your config and unse those instead of learning nix

[@aurealis2041]

It seems like you used it for a day and then thought "awawawa dis is twoo hawd fow mweee, Im goimg to make a vidweo abwouwt how awful it izzz!!!".

[@crackedoutofmymind-h8m]

don't really think its a rabbit hole it proposes a new concept which arch users are just incompetent to understand 😂

[@GWFO]

Laughs in Arch

[@odw32]

From playing around with it, it feels more suitable to things like headless homelab servers, VPS instances, hobby game hosting, etc. In that space it competes with Docker/K8S though. Nix vs Docker is obviously not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the philosophies are similar -- and for my personal use cases, it seems easier to maintain a docker-compose file than a configuration.nix file.

[@sawhill-x3e]

IMO NixOs is a collection of poor abstraction layers

[@PanosPitsi]

Συνονόματος

[@plusone.network]

I didn't want to but i had to lol 1:40 "is minimal by default which you can see from" ...proceeds to show a Windows 10 C: drive properties window while trying to explain that nixos takes up like 15 gigs XD all