171–180 of 201 posts
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You know you can just write `nix develop -c zsh` or `nix develop -c fish` or whatever, right?
Yes, I'm also a Nix maintainer. `nix develop` does many other things, originally based on re-creating the build environment of a derivation. This means that it is not ideal for the case of development environments that must support more than just building.
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That’s equivalent to demanding the Python community to abolish PyPI in favor of making the “one great” standard library. Nix is a language after all. It’s meant to have tools that build on it.
IMO it's a bit more like asking the python community to standardize all the tools listed in this stackoverflow question, which they only sort of succeeded in. "What is the difference between venv, pyvenv, pyenv, virtualenv, virtualenvwrapper, pipenv, etc?" https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41573587/what-is-the-dif...
Imagine if the Arch or Ubuntu installer halted, told you neutrally / BBC style criticism-focussed even about systemd, and then asked you how to proceed: systemd or sysvinit?
I prefer using Fish, but it's not supported. So, I uninstalled it and tried with Bash or Zsh instead.
Even after completely removing Fish from my system, the flow CLI still insists it's there and tries to open a path that no longer exists.
Switching to Zsh gave a different result, but it was still a frustrating experience. While I could activate the flox environment the first time I executed it, exiting caused issues. I had to reactivate it multiple times, encountering errors such as "environment already enabled" before it finally worked properly.
I'm sorry for the negative feedback, but this seems far from a version 1.0 product user experience.
So, I read about a similar-ish tool to this recently, `devenv` - it sounds like both tools are based around Nix. The other article (talking about `devenv`) was discussing a migration away from running Vagrant. I had questions then that I still have now with this tool: assuming this, like `devenv` doesn't directly run a VM, how exactly do you solve actual platform differences - e.g. it's quite common to have developer…
Using Nix as a package manager works best with a repository called "Nixpkgs". Nixpkgs focuses on reproducible builds, that means that for the same inputs, you always are going to get the same binary output. All of Nixpkgs are built using nixpkgs, and they don't depend on any library outside nixpkgs, including glibc and compilers. That means that you can "lock" your packages into a version, and you ensure that it will…
This is a common misconception, nixpkgs only really supports "repeatable builds" and "reproducible build environments".
The Reproducible Builds aspect of nixpkgs is still very much a work in progress as it is with all the other linux distributions and hardly a focus.
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That’s equivalent to demanding the Python community to abolish PyPI in favor of making the “one great” standard library. Nix is a language after all. It’s meant to have tools that build on it.
IMO it's a bit more like asking the python community to standardize all the tools listed in this stackoverflow question, which they only sort of succeeded in. "What is the difference between venv, pyvenv, pyenv, virtualenv, virtualenvwrapper, pipenv, etc?" https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41573587/what-is-the-dif...
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I'm confused here. That quote clearly says that Flox makes Nix easier for newcomers, not that Nix is easy. What exactly do you take issue with?
The fact that my experience with nix has historically been _so_ difficult, I fear even something that claims to make it "easier" will not be able to deliver -- my aversion has everything to do with nix, and little do with any product which claims to improve it. Consider it guilt by association. For me, it doesn't simply need to be easier, it needs to be usable. I lack confidence a product which is an abstraction laye…
I'm in no means claiming Nix is perfect, but coming from other distros to NixOS I really appreciate the ability to reboot to a new generation and then reboot back if I run in to issues. To do the same in Arch I had a bunch of 'snapper plus manual steps' to accomplish the same.
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The fact that my experience with nix has historically been _so_ difficult, I fear even something that claims to make it "easier" will not be able to deliver -- my aversion has everything to do with nix, and little do with any product which claims to improve it. Consider it guilt by association. For me, it doesn't simply need to be easier, it needs to be usable. I lack confidence a product which is an abstraction laye…
Maybe you need to try it out rather than casting doubts about a product you haven't tried yet? Pre-emptively doubting claims based on your past experience with a tool Flox claims to solve seems like a poor way to go here. For what it's worth, there are a number of options in the Nix space that really do solve for its complexity like Devbox and now Flox.
Thanks for the "advice" though.
Last I tried to use Nix there was lots of confusion over flakes - some tutorials suggested using them and others saying they are still in development. Has the situation improved?
I tested the product on both Ubuntu and MacOS, but had a frustrating experience in both cases. I prefer using Fish, but it's not supported. So, I uninstalled it and tried with Bash or Zsh instead. Even after completely removing Fish from my system, the flow CLI still insists it's there and tries to open a path that no longer exists. Switching to Zsh gave a different result, but it was still a frustrating experience.…
Re: fish, saw you found the issue someone else opened on it. We have it on our plan and will be adding support soon https://github.com/flox/flox/issues/1173
Re: your zsh experience, it's hard to judge exactly what's happening from your comment but we have had other users where the state of activation was suppressed by themes which can cause "environment already active". https://github.com/flox/flox/issues/637 - if you think it's something else or have more detail to share, let us know (either here, github, anywhere).
Thanks for trying Flox!
(Flox employee here)