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NixOS 21.05

nixos.org

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Re: NixOS 21.05

#3
This excellent Linux distribution has the honour of not needing to recommend a clean install. It deserves to be far more popular. I've run it since 2014 with so few problems, that I can't really claim to "know" Linux anymore.

Re: NixOS 21.05

#4
I recently moved my laptop, desktop, and a few servers from Arch Linux to NixOS with flakes and home-manager. It is amazing! The complete configuration for all machines is in a single git repository, I can share configuration between them, and a `flake.lock` file guarantees all machines are using the same version of everything. No more trying to remember what command I need to run to install and configure software and no more copying files from `/etc` between machines. Best of all, if I need to rebuild a computer from scratch or buy a new one, just running `nixos-install --flake myrepo#mymachine` configures everything so I can pick up right where I left off with an identical setup.

I also appreciate that a lot of frequently used configuration is easy to enable. For example, to install podman, the Arch wiki details a number of files in /etc you need to edit. On NixOS, just add `podman.enable = true;` to your configuration and you're done.

At this point, I think NixOS is hugely underrated and I strongly encourage anyone who is an advanced linux user to try it.

Re: NixOS 21.05

#5

This excellent Linux distribution has the honour of not needing to recommend a clean install. It deserves to be far more popular. I've run it since 2014 with so few problems, that I can't really claim to "know" Linux anymore.

That’s my only problem with it, I will forget what this random file in /etc does or how to configure this and that because it is so simple to do decleratively and never breaks :D

Re: NixOS 21.05

#6
post #4

I recently moved my laptop, desktop, and a few servers from Arch Linux to NixOS with flakes and home-manager. It is amazing! The complete configuration for all machines is in a single git repository, I can share configuration between them, and a `flake.lock` file guarantees all machines are using the same version of everything. No more trying to remember what command I need to run to install and configure software an…

Could you share a link to your repo? This setup sounds interesting. Currently I have two separate repos for NixOS and home-manager.

Re: NixOS 21.05

#7
I recently moved back to Arch from NixOS. I really love the idea, and the execution isn't necessarily bad, but it didn't make sense for me on the desktop. Straying off the beaten path quickly led to the sense that I was going to have to learn way more about Nix than I wanted to. I hope the documentation and community grows, because I definitely got the sense that it is the future arriving early!

Re: NixOS 21.05

#8

This excellent Linux distribution has the honour of not needing to recommend a clean install. It deserves to be far more popular. I've run it since 2014 with so few problems, that I can't really claim to "know" Linux anymore.

I still can’t quite figure out why it’s not more popular... then again, I don’t use it either, sadly, because it’s not as popular as I feel it deserves; I feel like there must be some reason it’s not used more, so in turn haven’t dedicated the time to learn it. Perhaps that’s cyclic...

Re: NixOS 21.05

#9
post #4

I recently moved my laptop, desktop, and a few servers from Arch Linux to NixOS with flakes and home-manager. It is amazing! The complete configuration for all machines is in a single git repository, I can share configuration between them, and a `flake.lock` file guarantees all machines are using the same version of everything. No more trying to remember what command I need to run to install and configure software an…

Could you share a link to your repo? This setup sounds interesting. Currently I have two separate repos for NixOS and home-manager.

https://github.com/nitsky/config

Re: NixOS 21.05

#10
post #8

This excellent Linux distribution has the honour of not needing to recommend a clean install. It deserves to be far more popular. I've run it since 2014 with so few problems, that I can't really claim to "know" Linux anymore.

I still can’t quite figure out why it’s not more popular... then again, I don’t use it either, sadly, because it’s not as popular as I feel it deserves; I feel like there must be some reason it’s not used more, so in turn haven’t dedicated the time to learn it. Perhaps that’s cyclic...

Software that isn't already packaged is hard to use at all. Often possible -- steam-run is handy; despite the name it basically provides a Ubuntu env -- but many forms of software development are difficult-to-impossible without first learning about Nix internals.

It can be a superb experience after you go through that trouble. Or it might not be. It depends on what you're trying to do, exactly, but you have to first spend a lot of effort learning before you'll have your answer.

Personally, I found it worth my while.

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