Off topic, but I wonder if the authors of zero-to-nix.com are aware that their project name actually reads quite funny for German speakers (as "Nix" in German also means Zero)
The pun also works in english, so I imagine they are.
Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
51–60 of 227 posts
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#52I wish guides like these contained screenshots.
Do people use Nix for desktop OSes? As a VM they SSH into? A collection of config scripts that they don't directly issue commands to?
I certainly can't tell from a quick glance of this guide
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#53> echo "Hello Nix" | nix run "nixpkgs#ponysay" why on earth would you make # any kind of a special character in commands. who thought of that
In most shells, "#" is not special unless it's preceded by whitespace. So
> echo "Hello Nix" | nix run nixpkgs#ponysay
also works.
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#54Off topic, but I wonder if the authors of zero-to-nix.com are aware that their project name actually reads quite funny for German speakers (as "Nix" in German also means Zero)
The original author is Dutch.
In Dutch, "niks" (same pronunciation as Nix), actually means "nothing".
His nickname is niksnut, which means "good-for-nothing".
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Closing in on 20 years of existence doesn't really qualify for fad I'm just starting a serious learning journey with Nix after flirting with the idea for a few years. Mostly because I find myself endlessly working on tooling to support the projects I work on that Nix already does extremely well. The feature I am most sold on is the ability to invoke clean complex development environments, that bring themselves to exi…
It may not be a fad, but there's a lot of rose-colored hype that masks a world of tedium. New prospective users should be prepared for a lot of uphill grind with respect to configuring packages or defining their own packages. Every time I try to do seemingly simple tasks in Nix, I end up spending hours on the Nix discord channel trying to work out a solution with seasoned users (who invariably struggle to work out a…
> MacOS is still a second-class citizen in the Nix world and a fair amount of stuff doesn't work properly
In my experience:
With fewer nix users on macOS, it's more likely you'll run into software which isn't in the binary cache, & so will compile from source. (brew also does this).
With fewer nix users on macOS, it's may take longer for packages broken on macOS to be fixed.
It's a bit more of a hurdle to use .app programs out-of-the-box compared to brew, due to the symlinking.
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Closing in on 20 years of existence doesn't really qualify for fad I'm just starting a serious learning journey with Nix after flirting with the idea for a few years. Mostly because I find myself endlessly working on tooling to support the projects I work on that Nix already does extremely well. The feature I am most sold on is the ability to invoke clean complex development environments, that bring themselves to exi…
It may not be a fad, but there's a lot of rose-colored hype that masks a world of tedium. New prospective users should be prepared for a lot of uphill grind with respect to configuring packages or defining their own packages. Every time I try to do seemingly simple tasks in Nix, I end up spending hours on the Nix discord channel trying to work out a solution with seasoned users (who invariably struggle to work out a…
I feel like Nix is worth it for me at this point, but I've definitely been through some of the pain described. This is a tough critique to hear for anyone who loves the project but I agree with the core of it (except the syntax issue).
Worth reading for Nix people and prospective Nix users alike, imo.
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#57Off topic, but I wonder if the authors of zero-to-nix.com are aware that their project name actually reads quite funny for German speakers (as "Nix" in German also means Zero)
Indeed, "zero to nix" was our jokey "working name." We never actually came up with a better name, so here we are :).
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#58I wish guides like these contained screenshots. Do people use Nix for desktop OSes? As a VM they SSH into? A collection of config scripts that they don't directly issue commands to? I certainly can't tell from a quick glance of this guide
Screenshots of what exactly? Installing packages? Running nixos-rebuild switch? I guess screenshots of a bunch of text.
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#59I wish guides like these contained screenshots. Do people use Nix for desktop OSes? As a VM they SSH into? A collection of config scripts that they don't directly issue commands to? I certainly can't tell from a quick glance of this guide
Zero to Nix introduces Nix, not NixOS the operating system. So, there's not really a need for screen shots as Zero to Nix it teaching how best to install and use Nix on any Linux or macOS. For that, code snippets are convenient I think.
Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix
#60Just my two cents: Nix doesn’t guarantee “reproducible”, just “repeatable”. (I think it’s helpful to keep these technical concepts distinct, and to introduce the right terminology when teaching, since it makes elaboration easier in the future.)