Is NixOS Overrated?

[@Xaito]

I use the Nix package manager as a replacement for the AUR on any distro that doesn't use the AUR. It's great. I'm interested in trying out NixOS some time - not because it's trendy, but because it solves some real problems that you'd have to solve yourself otherwise. I'm not sure test-driving it for a short while really drives home the advantages: IMO Nix will shine when you actually have a failed update and need to roll it back or when you do need to install a fresh system. Also even if you don't have to manage a fleet of PCs, the declarative approach seems great to me to copy other people's homework, just like you'd do with other dotfiles. For example I can't be bothered trying to get hyprland to work with a Nvidia GPU - but if I could just copy someone's nix config who did get it to work, I feel like that's a more manageable task.

[@5fr4ewq]

yeah, im totally with u

[@XxZeldaxXXxLinkxX]

Fukkin with the desktop environment is a great bonus to NixOS. I was trying to wrestle Hyprland with nvidia as well for a while, and it's just so nice to be able to switch back to cinnamon on x11 when I've had enough. Then I can just switch back when I feel like trying again. Name one other distro that will let you swap in and out desktop environments with little to no fuss. If I was on any other distro I probably would never even bother

[@Gaivs]

What Josh is saying is a big part of why I use nix at work. I have a main workstation, which I do most of my work from, but because I'm often testing things in the field or when I'm working from home, it is extremely useful to have the same developer setup on all machines. Sure, you can get a lot of the same features by using more traditional dotfile-management systems or what have you, or even by using nix on another OS, but to me the fact that nix was essentially developed for ensuring that you have a declarative and robust way to get the same results, that just made the most sense to use for config management. Furthermore, NixOS was developed to use nix, so because I use nix in many of the projects I work on to ensure reproducibility, this was also an argument for using NixOS itself.

[@magnificoas388]

With NixOS I could install the latest nvidia drivers! I tried so many distros before this and I was stuck with older versions of the drivers. And then I discover the power of Nix :) Flakes (I can tel you this is the future because it is the response for several problems of Nix architecture), home manger, nix shells, etc. I have 5 pcs with NixOS now. Nix just killed my distro hopping !

[@cybertrike]

Nix really whips the llama's ass.

[@lolololo-cx4dp]

Same, no more distro hoping

[@TechnologyGeek862]

yeah. That was one of the things why I switched to nixos. It took a little while to find right configs for nvidia but now I'm happy. Also have all my things working that I wanted and no more xorg for me 😄

[@Redyf]

I stopped distro hopping because of nix, I had to reinstall everything from scratch so many times before because my nvidia drivers were getting corrupted after updating them. Nix is so stable that it stopped happening, it crashed like twice in over a year on NixOS.

[@alinayossimouse]

I'm not a programmer and what really pulled and kept me sticking to NixOS is that it's so much harder to mess up my system. With other distros I've always had the problem that I'm curious to try out things and change configurations and I inevitably end up screwing something up that I don't know how to fix and I either have to start over or just give up. Even with something like Debian just trying out a package could land me in dependency hell where apt decides it needs to do certain operations I don't understand and suddenly my wifi is no longer connecting or my desktop manager is gone. NixOS has given me a very strong sense of being able to fuck around and find out without losing all my progress that I've made towards my perfect setup, because it doesn't matter that packages have diferent dependencies and also it's extremely easy to roll back a thing I tried out.

[@angeldude101]

NixOS gives me a very similar feeling as Rust in this regard: the restrictions they impose actually _increase_ freedom to experiment since you can actually trust the system to catch you when you do something stupid.

[@humanperson8418]

2 things to add about nixOS 1. nixOS is the perfect OS for software devs, difficult for anyone else: It provides a stable distro that still allows cutting edge software. This gives me a perfectly consistent development environment. Nix is also a great tool for writing configs. 25:31 (started writing before watching that segment) - You guys really touched on all the points I wanted to say about it being perfect for devs 2. The lack of documentation isn't a problem (In the long term): NixOS difficulty level is doing the same thing arch was. Difference is, arch was popular because it was hard, nixOS is popular cause it has allot of features software devs want. If nixOS becomes easy to use, people will still be talking about it. 100% of the people who gravitate to nixOS are the sort of people who can contribute o nixOS, which means as it gains popularity, it'll improve faster than most distros. That is why the documentation problem will stop being an issue much faster than it was for arch. More people using NixOS, means more people cleaning the documentation & making tutorials, means the documentation will stop being a problem in the mid term.

[@angeldude101]

"The only way to break NixOS is corrupting the filesystem." Lol. And here I was spending most of this evening debugging a corrupted file system. :P Between prior generations (on a different partition) and a rescue version (declared through its own file that was largely copied from the internet), I'm now watching this video on that same NixOS system as though the corruption never happened. (I legitimately couldn't find anything that was actually lost in the process.)

[@magnificoas388]

Matt @37:32, Nix just solved the problem of dependencies ! That is the HEART of Nix :)

[@Tattersail]

My first impactful impression of NixOS, after putting it on a laptop and going through some basic setup to actually be useful... being able to roll back your software is great. But it's weird that home or dotfiles don't seem to be part of the revisions by default. This way it supports fire-and-forget distributed system deployments much better than desktops which are continually exposed to monkeys with a wrench (i.e. me)

[@Joel11111]

I wouldn't necessarily call it overrated. People are fascinated by it because it does things in a unique way. At the same time, most people don't need the complete reproducibility that NixOS offers. Usually, fixable and stable are good enough. Complete reproducibility is overkill for most people.

[@AlanTwoRings]

Reproducibility isn't just about producing deterministic installations, it's also our primary defense against supply-chain attacks in the OSS ecosystem. Not everybody needs to care about it, but if our package managers only install reproducible binaries, and provide advanced users a way to compile from source to verify the binary, this makes supply-chain attacks on the binary caches impractical. This doesn't help with source-level backdoors in official repositories but it's a necessary first step to even be able to start tackling supply-chain security.

[@cybertrike]

bill gates said 640k would be the most memory that users would ever need. I urge you to learn about what reputability is and why probably the most import issue in computer science and technology right now!..... or are you one of these 'works on my machine types'...LOL!

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

Immutable distro = the devs can break it, but you can't fix it. Absolutely crazy concept I will never understand.

[@RedbeardyMcGee]

Have you used an iOS device before? That's "immutable" and unfixable by downstream. Nix is not immutable (misnomer, or misuse of the term). Nix is atomic, because your system is never put into an unexpected state. You can break it (you are the "dev" in your analogy) but you can't fix the broken **result** (you are the "user" in your analogy when you are using the system instead of configuring the files). However, you can just turn that broken result off and revert to a working result. The concept you don't understand is one you made up, and you shouldn't ever understand it because it doesn't make any sense.

[@Blure]

I enjoy listening to the conversation you guys have while working. Loving your content as always pal!

[@kingfrenchtoes5769]

NixOS users, like most linux users, will never reproduce.

[@tapank415]

Haha XD

[@vaisakhkm783]

😢This hit hard in the face when she said no...

[@cybertrike]

brutal..!!!! LOL

[@robindeboer7568]

Youre not 100% wrong. Im gay XD

[@3Diego]

After 3 years of running dwm on top of Void Linux with zero issue, no breakage, no bug and no headache, I found myself immune to distro hopping.. Then suddenly Wayland became a thing and Hyprland became a thing even bigger.. As a Void user I had two options to get Hyprland installed on my machine whitch was either build it from source or use a third party script to get it installed via xbps-src whitch felt like aur (by the way).. As a former Arch user that hated third party stuff mixing up with my oficial packages causing bugs and crashes I definetly didin't want to go that relm ever again, so what other options did I have? Well.. trying out any of those distros that supported it natively. So I tried NixOS and ended up liking it a lot and adopting it as my main distro. Long story shot, Hyprland made me switch

[@reinux]

Nix would have saved me so much headache at my previous company when we were deploying kiosks running our own custom software that gets updated quite frequently. I've been using it for about a year now on my desktop and laptop, and while the community is atrocious, the software itself is solid. My next job will be similar, so I will be using nix for all our servers and kiosks.

[@Powerofthepickle]

34:18 This is the primary reason. I got tired of setting up Arch over and over again

[@cybertrike]

19:39 Steve: Whaaat valve is consider using nix??? Where did you get this information from..tell me more?

[@tmendoza6]

Matt would appreciate a future video where you share your thoughts on AI and the future of Linux. Tools such as GPT-4, Perplexity, GitHub Copilot, Elicit, and Scite are increasingly becoming essential in the tech and academic landscapes. Notably, OpenAI has formed a partnership with Microsoft. If these tools were developed to run exclusively on Microsoft platforms, I would have no choice but to switch back.

[@kodiwalls7678]

I like NixOS because it's so easy to use compared to other distros.

[@JamesTsividis]

What do you mean?

[@MyAmazingUsername]

Oh it's reuploaded without the 13 minute intro! :D I think KZbin also lets you cut videos without reuploading them.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Only certain channels get that feature.

[@MyAmazingUsername]

@@TheLinuxCast Oh today is your lucky day. KZbin Studio > Content > "Edit Pencil" on the video > Editor in the left sidebar. Hope this helps in the future! :D

[@zeckma]

This is just my take but I prefer LFS as my dev environment because I simply know my system inside and out, and also that it pushed me to install a bunch of libraries which were necessary to compile applications I use, so when building my code I make, I just don't have to install anything, everything just happens to be on my system, like for my game engine, I already had GLFW, GLEW, and libepoxy. That being said LFS is a big waste of time for most people but I like the fact that I'm not mildly inconvenienced when I want to do something because I already have covered most requirements for most software and even my own.

[@cybertrike]

no reproduce your enviroment to me with a single file, that it GUARANTEED to work on my machine.. if you can do that you have your invented nix!! Somehow i have the feeling your won't be able to do that, and you'll send me a docker container or a fat VM. You can use LFS in nix if you really want too. sounds like a nice setup.

[@HealyHQ]

Good stuff, fellas!

[@DalePatch]

Can you expand on Josh's point of NixOS not being Linux Filesystem compliant and that breaking enterprise software?

[@meskes4059]

Enterprise software expects things to be in the same place, regardless of the distribution. Since Nix doesn’t follow the File Hierarchy Standard, that software will not find those dependencies where it expects them to be and there will be breakage, which means downtime, which means a lot of wasted money, in both revenue and time spent on fixing the issues. And time equals money. A lot of money.

[@mars_0008]

Anyone know how to get the emulator working in Android studio in NixOS?

[@nguyennguyenkhang5800]

I use it via Flatpak. Probably the only solution I have instead of main repo in Nix, Android Studio in Nix repo doesn't work for me.

[@jimmcg229]

I'm not a big fan of nixos or nix, but I'm a bit confused. NixOS is amazing for people who know how to use it. Its not _just_ "the current flex".. Its very similar to lisp. Call me crazy, but idrt they give a damn how easy it is for unixporn script kiddies to rice nixos lol.. Not every distro owes us a simple and easy configuration process. NixOS isn't XeroLinux.. Nix is a language and OS for developers. Ubuntu is an OS for "normies". 2 ends of the spectrum..

[@ardishco]

Hey, I used to be a unixporn scriptkiddie and I use nixos just fine, everyday usage is not hard. If you don't want to do advanced stuff, then don't. You have the choice not to.

[@jimmcg229]

@@ardishco I wasn't throwing shade.. good for you!! Use what works for you! But.. why do you use NixOS? Genuinely curious.. Even if you were just curious and wanted to learn Nix.. just curious.. no wrong answers

[@mattrixman4634]

​@@jimmcg229 I use NixOS because nix prevents me from wasting a lot of time configuring my dev environment on different machines. In a pinch I can even summon my dev env to my phone (there's nix-on-droid). It also lets me be confident that people who contribute to my open source projects (supposing they're willing to install nix) will not have a which-version-should-I-install type nightmare. "nix develop" just installs all the tools you need for that project, and when you run "exit" they've gone away. When I later learned that there was a Linux distribution for it also, it seemed like an obvious switch to make.

[@snowSecurityneeded]

For me I am slowly trying to figure out nixOS as currently I manually deploy VMs harden them and configure them all as well as daily driving. it can be complex to learn but so far it seems to be pretty easy to follow but when you fail it really blows up in your face lol. What I like about it in theory that I have not completed it yet. Deploying a static setup for all my machines or virtual machines, deploy vm for security testing and CTF labs, building CLI tools in python/golang etc and being able to keep all those changes isolated from the main system and environments like venv but for everything. End goal is being able to remotely nuke a device when it is not working properly and know it is now setup with just the bare minimum needed software.

[@CRYPTiCEXiLE]

Arch always had a installer it was in 2012 that they had "the arch way" when systemd got put into the system and sysvinit was taken out.. they had no choice to take the old installer out as the base system have change so to keep it going they had hte manual way of things which i find it weird to see people cause most dont even remember the canadian version of arch and i been using it since 2006 as arch was always easy to isntall.... but it was much like freebsd where it just installs the base and you have to setup the gui in the commandline.. which is i like actually.... but the new archinstall script is nice and making it easier to install is keep the original roots of arch as really it was meant obe keep it simple stupid u know.

[@sousuzumi]

My opinion about NixOS as someone who loves NixOS: Most of the benefits it provides aren't necessary for the vast majority of end users, and so these benefits are outweighted by the annoyances of having to manage it in a roundabout way when compared to the rest of the distros. Sure, there will be a dude coming here and saying "Well, I have 5 different development machines and 3 laptops that I use daily and I love that I can easily reproduce my work environment in all of them", but, again, this is not the case of 99,9% of the user base.

[@JessicaFEREM]

I had fedora remove the wifi driver from mt system with an update, I downloaded the package from intel themselves and ran it. intel wifi sucks so bad

[@Redyf]

I use nixos btw

[@averagetechnologyenojyer]

Heyyy Matt do a challenge using pen tablet as a mouse if possible, sounds fun :)

[@5fr4ewq]

i mean, its pretty convienient. its just that playing games sucks with graphic tablet

[@averagetechnologyenojyer]

@@5fr4ewq I heard people exclusively buy such a tablet for osu lol

[@5fr4ewq]

@@averagetechnologyenojyer yeah, thats also the case xd but yeah, daily driving graphic tablet instead of mouse is cool, its just that u need more space on ur desk. pros: its WAY more ergonomic than keeping hand on a mouse cons: it can be kinda a pain in the ass to start using it and even after some time it can be difficult to use in some case.

[@averagetechnologyenojyer]

@@5fr4ewq yeah even as a small mouse, the tablet requires quite a lot more space,mine does not have the scroll wheel so it's a downside and it's a mini one, and most importantly it's pen is so comfortable that once I start holding it I don't want to go back to my keyboard P.S. did I mention the lack of any good handwriting to text converter programs except proprietary or paid ones like one note desktop, its such a pain

[@tcurdt]

I highly doubt that "belonging" is a reason for many people. Reproducibility is the killer feature. Going through the hassle of setting a system up only once is the pure honeypot.

[@kensmalley9840]

I really enjoyed this Nix OS discussion, but have any in the group researched "Penguins-eggs" ? Most of the PCs I manage need to have an identical built up base, where the end user can place just a few unique applications on it. Having to go into a distribution to pull up a Snapshot or move a Client Configuration to an additional new install is fine, but having on-the-shelf loaded USBs or using PXE for remote systems seems the simplest and most manageable.

[@nrg753]

#!/bin/bash echo "It's not working" One of the compatibility reasons I had to switch back to Fedora.

[@serpent213]

s/bash/sh/, actually will run bash.

[@JamesSmith-ix5jd]

Same

[@nixeverything]

i expected these guys to know more lol😂

[@mdjey2]

What the hell is NixOS?

[@Mwrp86]

Answer: It really isn't

[@johanb.7869]

I like it. Nuggies of the week☺

[@ardishco]

I don't know what made you 4 have opinions like this but I would like to know how long you used NixOS to have this kind of opinion? Were you even interested in it? Did you force yourself to use it? If the answer to the last 2 questions was "yes" then you have yourself a problem, you will not be able to give a fair opinion on anything that way and assuming that this is the case you wouldn't have spent a lot of time with it, trying to understand it rather than telling it "but I want to do it this way!!!!!"... And no, I'm not "invalidating your opinion" or something dumb like that, It's just that everything on this channel said about NixOS sounds like nobody even bothered to use it and try to get used to it more than 2 days bruh... Also, I remember in his previous videos Matt literally says "I don't even want to give NixOS users the chance to feel the pleasure of being mentioned" just because people keep recommending it to him which is a completely dumb reason to hate an entire operating system that is only made to make things easier for people that use it, it's not some offensive statement about a minority group or something... it isn't like other distros where you have to inconvenience yourself down to the depths of hell just to have a functional system (Gentoo, Mint, Arch)...

[@TheLinuxCast]

I've been using it for almost two months, so no clue what your'e talking about. Steve admitted to only barely using it and Josh has used it often.

[@Microphunktv-jb3kj]

.. i agree.. nix documentation is complete garbage.

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

Josh would pass as a younger brother of one of my friends... They both look alike.

[@uuu12343]

Oof my "shit community alarm" is sounding

[@TheLinuxCast]

Want to help support the show? Get some merch! shop.thelinuxcast.org

[@mucklus]

Matt, please google what the phrase "Procrustean Bed" means. Because that's exactly what you're doing. You measure all distributions by one yardstick that is only interesting to you and your friends. By the way, who are those strange people around you? Have they managed to install Ubuntu in a dual boot with Windows 11 yet? It's no big deal Matt. You'll grow up and start liking Gentoo and NixOS)))))

[@TheLinuxCast]

Just because we don't like the same things doesn't make my opinion any less valid.

[@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115]

@@TheLinuxCast He wants you to make KZbin your NixOS documentation.

[@mucklus]

@@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115 No, I don't. People who don't use NixOS usually talk about bad documentation in NixOS. For example, I understand everything without ritual reading of boring cheat sheets.

[@ardishco]

@@TheLinuxCast this is the same argument as "but its my opinion bro" which basically ignores any actual criticism...

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@ardishco The actual criticism came from someone who watched a podcast without realizing they were watching a podcast. So I took it with a grain of salt.