NixOS Tutorial - Flakes! Unlocking the Full Potential of NixOS

[@sebastiankutter3630]

Great video as always. I have 2 wishes: 1. a video on organizing the configuration for multiple machines (which don't actually use the same configuration but different ones) 2. a video on nixos-anywhere, where you could use flakes to build one or maybe even multiple hosts from one central system (admin-workstation -> server1..n).

[@WhyDoesNothingWork]

1. I dont know if i'll get to making a video on that, but my method is i have a gitrepo for my nix configs and each system gets a folder with its hostname, or somefolders for groups when i use the same flake on many machines. 2. I havent used nixos-anywhere much other than just for quick testing my prefered method is to generate custom images and then deploy off those using something like terraform, i may make a video on this in the future i have a lot of videos in my queue and I'm way behind since summer is short in northern canada and i've been busy enjoying it with family

[@kalthun8318]

I've been waiting for this video. Another amazing video! Thank you so much again for your hard work!

[@DreamsAPI]

Thank you sir!

[@everywan]

3:00 - You can also add "experimental-features = nix-command flakes" to your /etc/nix/nix.conf, if you want to start using flake commands right away without rebuilding. 12:32 - You can also `nix flake update` to update individual input(s) by appending them to the end. e.g. `nix flake update nixpkgs-unstable`

[@WhyDoesNothingWork]

Oh nice I didn't know about that updating flake argument

[@DreamsAPI]

A quick request, can you zoom in on your code? and would love if you can connect officilal flake docs with your doing to make that connection would be be very helpful in understanding. You are doing an awesom job, please continue to make more videos

[@WhyDoesNothingWork]

I will make a point of doing that from now on, and thank you for the kind feedback :)

[@abbcc555]

This is where otherwise quite ok NixOS falls flat on it's face. The flakes thing is unbelievably cumbersome and convoluted way to do anything. For example it's practically impossible to install a flake from github so that you'd actually get the bin in your path. For majority of things just creating a bash alias to nix run github:whatever is the way to go. Which unfortunately means that it will download and rebuild stuff sometimes and that takes time and if you're without internet access then you basically don't have a computer at all.

[@WhyDoesNothingWork]

Flakes are certainly not intuitive, probably why they're still considered experimental. They are by no means necessary, most nix people will say they're a must but unless you're building large deployments i don't really think they're required

[@bigupbig2198]

Starting a project using a flake? Can be anything from simple to complex that would be cool to see. Ex. Website, CL program

[@WhyDoesNothingWork]

That's a good idea, I will try to do a follow up video with more on flakes, right now I have a couple more "fundamentals" videos in the works I want to get finished

[@hubstrangers3450]

Thank you....

[@james-cucumber]

Just a heads up, the font size in your editor and terminal are a bit small. The “industry standard” seems to be around 15-20 lines visible (source: the 5 most recent videos from creators I like). You can probably get away with 25

[@WhyDoesNothingWork]

good advice, thank you

[@wylde780]

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