this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Hi everyone!

I saw that NixOS is getting popularity recently. I really have no idea why and how this OS works. Can you guys help me understanding all of this ?

Thanks !

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[–] JASN_DE@feddit.de 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

everyone

Now that's what I'd call a stretch...

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 7 points 2 years ago

Indeed, why would I switch, already have been running NixOS for 10+ years.

[–] L0Wigh@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

I'll edit. That was clearly a stretch

[–] Tilted@programming.dev 10 points 2 years ago (7 children)

I used NixOS for a couple of years. My experience is like this:

  1. It is a rolling release (mostly)
  2. You write a declarative configuration for your system, e.g., my config will say I want Neovim with certain plugins, and I can also include my Neovim configuration
  3. It is stable, and when it breaks it is easy to go back
  4. Packages are mostly bleeding edge
[–] L0Wigh@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The configuration stuff seems great. I guess it reduce the struggle of porting a full config from one pc to another right ?

[–] Tilted@programming.dev 3 points 2 years ago

Yes absolutely. It is really great. It is also a source of frustration, e.g., missing configuration options, non-obvious options and so on. Overall it works well.

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[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Note that there's both the rolling unstable channel and a bi-annual stable release channel.

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[–] featherfurl@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Here's the straightforward version of why I use it:

  1. The entire state of your operating system is defined in a config file, and changes are made by changing the config file. This makes it super easy to reproduce your exact system many times and to know where all the many different configuration elements that describe your system are located.

  2. Updates are applied atomically, so you don't have to worry about interrupting the update process and if it fails, the previous state of your system is still bootable. By default every time you change something, you get another option in the boot menu to roll back to.

  3. Making container-like sub systems is super easy when you're familiar with nix, so you can have as many different enclaves as you like for different software versions, development environments, desktop setups, whatever without taking a performance hit. Old versions of stuff are very accessible without breaking your new stuff.

  4. The package manager has a lot of software and accessing nonfree stuff is straightforward. Guix looks rad, but nix ended up being the more practical compromise for my usecase. I didn't want to have to package a heap of software the moment I made the switch.

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[–] federico3@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's in no way "everyone", just a vocal minority.

[–] Eufalconimorph@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I use ~~Arch~~ NixOS BTW.

[–] Herbstzeitlose@feddit.de 4 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Because it’s the latest Cool Nerd Thing™ like Arch before it, and Gentoo before that. Most of the people raving about it probably don’t have much use for its features.

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[–] moldyringwald@kbin.social 3 points 2 years ago (5 children)

It's insanely stable but you have to have a lot of linux/programming knowledge to do even the simplest things like installing/updating your software or making little tweaks. I played with it for hours the other day and I'm just too dumb to figure it out lol I think it's just a super stable highly customizable distro for power users and a lot of people like that. If you can get over the learning curve it's a pretty powerful and unique os

[–] Chobbes@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

It's kind of funny because I'd put NixOS on a complete newbies computer for sure, and recommend it to an expert... But I'm less sure if I'd tell a random mid-intermediate Linux user to switch.

Like if Grandma wants Linux on their computer to do some internet browsing for some reason... I'd absolutely put NixOS on it because it's easy to manage the system for them... But somebody who is a little familiar with Linux already might be more confused about the differences. It's kind of the ultimate beginner distro and the ultimate power-user distro, but a bit awkward between those extremes, haha.

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[–] TrippyTortuga@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I will switch as soon as I can get proprietary Nvidia drivers to work on my laptop.

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[–] datendefekt@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Glancing over the website, I thought it's an immutable OS, like Fedora Silverblue. I could imagine that it might be cool to use with Ansible and stuff. But for an average user? I can't really see the advantages in respect to the work you have to put in.

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[–] le_saucisson_masque@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I keep seeing trends with Linux distribution like teenager looking for new fashion.

I think it’s mostly the very young Linux user who hope from one distribution to the another over and over whereas many just stick with what they got : Ubuntu, Debian, mint, maybe fedora.

NixOS is certainly interesting tho.

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[–] fazo96@lemmy.trippy.pizza 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have been using for years on servers. My lemmy instance is hosted on it.

Although for desktop I had too many issues back in 2019 so I ended up back to Arch Linux and then EndeavourOS

Would be fun to try again to use it on desktop

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[–] mrh@mander.xyz 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

I daily drive GNU Guix instead, and I would strongly recommend any emacs and/or lisp enthusiasts interested in the benefits of functional, reproducible, declarative, and hackable system management to give it a try!

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[–] syboxez@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

NixOS is a fully declarative and reproducable system.

What this means is that you can create a single configuration.nix, which includes all of your applications, settings, aliases, environment variables, user account + groups, etc., and copy that over to another NixOS machine (including different architectures) and run nixos-rebuild boot to completely reproduce the system on that other machine.

The nix package manager is also really good at telling you if the configuration will break anything, where, and how, and refuses to apply until the issue is fixed.

Also every time you use nixos-rebuild, it creates a new generation of your NixOS install meaning if something ends up breaking, you can reboot into the old system.

So for example, I can theoretically have the exact same configuration across my desktop, laptop, phone, server, etc., minus the automatically generated hardware-configuration.nix, which is specific to the hardware.

Also Nix supports package overlays, which means that you can modify an existing package while the maintainer still keeps it up to date.

[–] thenonymousrexius@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Oh boy my two cents time!

I love the concept of NixOS. A fully declarative , reproduceable system from a single config repo! Sounds theoretically like it would be my kind of thing.

Sure, theoretically, I could have a fully reproduceable system. The time spent declaring that fully reproduceable system though... I remember the first time I was trying to get my usual disk setup of, a luks encrypted btrfs partition with multi-factor enabled decryption/authentication.

On a normal install it would take like a day at worse to install your distro. My first attempt with NixOS took me almost 4 days of screwing around in configs. 2 of those days were probably cumulatively spent waiting for the config option list of the nixos manual to search for text. And the number of redundant config options which all do the same thing! Or, are supposed to all do the same thing but in actuality, only one of them does the thing they are supposed to.

I really want to love NixOS but it always ends up feeling like an exercise in my patience and time to do even the simplest of things. As such I find myself asking the question of, am I going to spend so much time reinstalling my distro that it's ever worth this initial investment?

Anyways, rant over. I actually have been debating switching back over for another try again myself I just have some very frustrating memories of my first attempts with the distro.

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[–] DAT@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago

nah

didn't have enough time during the last half a decade to learn yet another thing

might be better fit than my current debian setup - but how would I ever know, since my current thing is good enough?

[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Overlays. Good package management, and lot of stability stuff.

[–] Syudagye@pawb.social 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

SYMLINKS

SYMLINKS EVERYWHERE

(also 6000 packages intalled on my system for some reason lol)

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