Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
1–10 of 206 posts
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#2This will sound rude, but I'm more and more convinced that people immersed in nix have never seen a real person in real life.
defined boolean expression reference true.
wat.
I'm a technical person, and I have no idea what this is. And for technical people? Literally everyone says that "nix is really hard to get started with".
nix and nix-related developers, please, please find some real people and talk to them.
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#3Looking at the GUI, I have no idea what it does.
I'm guessing that you actually need to know Nix to be able to use it, which kinda defeats the "usable for non-technical users" goal.
I can see the value of it, if I ever learn Nix, and want a quick way to make modifications without having to google every possibilities.
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#4This will sound rude, but I'm more and more convinced that people immersed in nix have never seen a real person in real life. defined boolean expression reference true. wat. I'm a technical person, and I have no idea what this is. And for technical people? Literally everyone says that "nix is really hard to get started with". nix and nix-related developers, please, please find some real people and talk to them.
I'm a nix fan and have been using nixos for years now, packaging stuff and writing my own nix-based libraries, but I still find the language to be painful.
The problem is, documentation is sparse to non-existant, error messages are poor and often far from the actual problem, and it makes use of concept that lots of people are not familiar with (like lazy evaluation) without ever explaining them, resulting in surprising semantics.
But as far as I can tell, the nix devs are fully aware of these issues - they are affected by it too! The problem is, solving each of those issues is hard, and requires a lot of focused efforts.
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#5As usual, those who have learned Nix have completely forgotten what was difficult about it in the first place. And those who haven't are so confused that are unable to ask good questions.
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#6This will sound rude, but I'm more and more convinced that people immersed in nix have never seen a real person in real life. defined boolean expression reference true. wat. I'm a technical person, and I have no idea what this is. And for technical people? Literally everyone says that "nix is really hard to get started with". nix and nix-related developers, please, please find some real people and talk to them.
I'm a nix fan and have been using nixos for years now, packaging stuff and writing my own nix-based libraries, but I still find the language to be painful. The problem is, documentation is sparse to non-existant, error messages are poor and often far from the actual problem, and it makes use of concept that lots of people are not familiar with (like lazy evaluation) without ever explaining them, resulting in surprisi…
nix has been around for 18 years. If the documentation is still sparse after all these years, it's not a problem that will be fixed, ever. Same for explaining concepts.
Proper errors are a huge and poorly understood problem, so I'm inclined not to judge those too harshly.
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#7Looking at the GUI, I have no idea what it does. I'm guessing that you actually need to know Nix to be able to use it, which kinda defeats the "usable for non-technical users" goal. I can see the value of it, if I ever learn Nix, and want a quick way to make modifications without having to google every possibilities.
It literally says what each field does..
Just because it doesn't have an obvious minimal modern UI doesn't mean it doesn't do its job. Gotta read I guess .. but then again Nix also in general has a prerequisite of "calm down and read." But then again, so does Linux!
The only thing you need to do to be Nix-competent is not flip the table and blame the tool when you get an error you don't understand. (Same goes for Haskell.) That said, my years of industry experience has shown that that is a rare attribute - doubly so amongst those with experience and therefore egos.
People in this thread act like Nix users are out of touch. Maybe, but I'd rather be out of touch and learning than grumpy that I had to read.
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#8This will sound rude, but I'm more and more convinced that people immersed in nix have never seen a real person in real life. defined boolean expression reference true. wat. I'm a technical person, and I have no idea what this is. And for technical people? Literally everyone says that "nix is really hard to get started with". nix and nix-related developers, please, please find some real people and talk to them.
I'm a nix fan and have been using nixos for years now, packaging stuff and writing my own nix-based libraries, but I still find the language to be painful. The problem is, documentation is sparse to non-existant, error messages are poor and often far from the actual problem, and it makes use of concept that lots of people are not familiar with (like lazy evaluation) without ever explaining them, resulting in surprisi…
> The problem is, documentation is sparse to non-existant, error messages are poor and often far from the actual problem, and it makes use of concept that lots of people are not familiar with (like lazy evaluation) without ever explaining them, resulting in surprising semantics.
I used NixOS and Home-Manager to run my entire system and home directory for a couple weeks earlier this year. The lack of clear documentation made me leave. Most of the time to find relevant information I'd have to go in some chat room since often the "official" documentation would be outdated. If the documentation was better I'd probably still be on it.
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#9What a coincidence. I was just asking about NixOS on Mastodon. Reposting (I'm on a mobile, little time to type):
" a question on dev environment isolation. Is either #NixOS or #GUIX usable as an OS for day-to-day use (coding, browsing, occasional gaming)? Or is it better to just use their respective package managers on top of regular Linux? Also, anyone here doing desktop #virtualization? Is there a sense of running a #VM per project? Is that a viable alternative to dual-booing Windows when I want to do some Windows dev or play a game?
I'm planning to overhaul my desktop and am exploring options."
Re: Nix-GUI: Make NixOS usable for non-technical users through settings / GUI
#10This will sound rude, but I'm more and more convinced that people immersed in nix have never seen a real person in real life. defined boolean expression reference true. wat. I'm a technical person, and I have no idea what this is. And for technical people? Literally everyone says that "nix is really hard to get started with". nix and nix-related developers, please, please find some real people and talk to them.
I'm a nix fan and have been using nixos for years now, packaging stuff and writing my own nix-based libraries, but I still find the language to be painful. The problem is, documentation is sparse to non-existant, error messages are poor and often far from the actual problem, and it makes use of concept that lots of people are not familiar with (like lazy evaluation) without ever explaining them, resulting in surprisi…
Too that I say look at react hooks. Somehow the React devs managed to introduce functional concepts into a framework without anyone knowing why or how this black magic trick works. At the time of introduction I was heavily interested in functional approaches, mainly the solutions from Haskell. And now nobody gives a a damn how hooks works in JS only that they make the coding somewhat easier and nicer. (I‘m no JS developer and how no real world view at the current stage anymore).
Regarding nix. I love the idea and the project. Tried it 3 times with various issues which stopped me from using it (last time I was not able to compile a rust program because of some weird c runtime library which was pulled with the wrong version from wherever by whoever). My second bigger issue with nix is the fact that you have to go all the way or it makes no real sense. Mixing nix with Ubuntu or base arch is of course possible. But the developing python or whatever whichever means to install and manage the whole toolchain and project dependencies also with nix. I still check the project every now and then.