Finally, I took a look at NixOS, and the Nix package manager! And while I was very skeptical at first, after a week of use, it’s clear that this is an insanely powerful distribution, that is now at the very top of my list to replace Fedora on my editing rig.
Let’s see why, how it works, and why it’s so good, even though it won’t be for everyone:
@thelinuxEXP As an example, that packaging of steamback I mentioned the other day: It’s not done yet as I am waiting for my PRs on some dependencies to clear.
But I’ve been running it a couple of weeks off of my work in progress pull request which until everything is in place just has those dependencies directly embedded. At some point after all the PRs have been merged, I’ll drop that direct link and source it from the main channel like the other packages.
@thelinuxEXP@nixos_org i am currently experimenting with the nix package manager (maybe nixos in the future but im happy with arch). its a little complicated to setup, once you get the hang of it there is no going back 😂. i wish to see a unified nix package (so no need for nix-env, nix-shell, etc) in the near future.
My raspberry pi runs NixOS to host my matrix instance with all my bridges and my own nextcloud instance. It is really amazing how easy it is to deploy back my configuration. And more, if I need to go back to a x86_64 server, I can without changing my configuration !
Alright I'm convinced, I'll put nixOS on my laptop next, the only thing that concerns me is printing which is either super simple or straight out impossible depending on the distro.
@thelinuxEXP@nixos_org Being able to keep my laptop and my desktop environments in sync is interesting, but having multiple package versions installed at once is really drawing my attention. How are you storing/distributing your configuration.nix?
@ToneMilazzo@thelinuxEXP A popular move is to use a git repository. Otherwise there’s a bunch of creative options - like you could keep them on a thumb drive for example.
I definitely love the fact that it's possible, and TRIVIAL, to roll back if an update or configuration tweak breaks things, and that it's super easy to clone the environment.
It's like this distro was made for my use case! I want to have the same environment between my desktop PC and my travel laptop so I can just sync the laptop before a trip and go!
@thelinuxEXP I tried running NixOs for a couple months but after a lot of struggling decided to go back "home" to Arch and Fedora. I do think Nix has some really solid ideas though, it definitely seems like the future.
@cablespaghetti Definitely a good one, yeah! It’s at almost 20K views on YouTube studio (that’s before YouTube checks if all views are « legit » and not bot related), so I guess it’s performing in the top end of my usual stuff!
@thelinuxEXP@nixos_org To use Nix, you install through the Packman, but if you want it to be a permanent installation: you go to the config, where you can tell it to also download and install.
If Nix wasn't a completely standalone packman, I'd say it's one of the most pointless applications I've seen. Why would I install from it when I can just go to the config, tell it what I want, and it does it for me?
@boilingsteam@thelinuxEXP I wonder, is there anything in particular you think guix executes better than nix? Based on the article you linked it seems like they operates in pretty much the same way, and the only highlighted difference is non-free packages on the official repositories. Please tell me if i missed something :)
@boilingsteam@thelinuxEXP@nixos_org I really like what they are doing at guix, I was seriously considering it, but it has way less packages, than Nix, and I still game, and have machines which needs propriatery drivers. :/
@darhma@nixos_org Yeah that’s a huge draw for me, to ensure I always have a fully operation editing rig. As much as I love Fedora, I have had a few issues recently that lost me a few hours and I really can’t afford that
@darhma@nixos_org Yeah I almost included it but the video would have been way too long! Maybe I’ll do a more advanced video detailing flakes, home manager, nix shell and the like!
@thelinuxEXP Glad you got to it - will catch up on the video soonish.
A point of advice on the particulars of this thread: Personally I think a “nix advanced” video would be too unwieldy. Some of the articles I sent your way might hint at why.
I think a stronger stance for audience and coverage is to start from use case / scenario rather than specific feature / general collection of assorted features.
@thelinuxEXP Oh, just to pump excitement: Nix shells to test things out are great. Nix shells as shell script hash-bangs are quite excellent as well ;)
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