Learning Nix by Example: Building FFmpeg 4.0 • Hacker News Board

Re: Learning Nix by Example: Building FFmpeg 4.0

#11

Post by dozzie » Sat, May 26, 2018, 8:06 PM UTC

smilliken wrote: post #8

vonseel wrote: post #2

Way too much work for a personal machine. I can see where it might be useful in formal environments and have used nix before sparingly. I found quickly that you need to get in the habit of using the same package manager, when after a few months I couldn't remember how to use a nix package or didn't know how to update a package properly (can't remember exactly what the problem was).

I use nix on my personal machines, including ubuntu and macos. It's more convenient than apt and homebrew because I only have to be familiar with one package manager, and one package repository. I can pin to the same version of the repository on all machines, and have identical software. I'm no longer frustrated by not being able to get the same version of a package between versions of ubuntu, not to mention between…

All the things you list as benefits are only better because you use single packages source for all the machines, and one that has retention policy that keeps many package versions, and doesn't have shitty packages with all the content downloaded in post-install scripts. It's not because Nix is supposed to be superior to APT or something; you'd get exactly the same if you used APT with the same policies as Nix.

Re: Learning Nix by Example: Building FFmpeg 4.0

#12

Post by Annatar » Sat, May 26, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

__david__ wrote: post #10

Annatar wrote: post #5

This is all well and good, and certainly the more examples the better, but this will only work so long as one is on GNU/Linux and so long as the compile or link stage don't bust. And then, this whole complicated wrapper shatters.

The Nix package manager also runs on macOS. Think of it as a cross platform Homebrew. Your other objections apply to all package managers, and not just Nix.

I'm principally against abstracting package management across platforms, because experience has taught me that the software management subsystem of the target platform is the best system for that platform. I see no point in this abstraction since I understand that the best packaging format is the native format, and I've no problem mastering the native format.

Re: Learning Nix by Example: Building FFmpeg 4.0

#13

Post by vonseel » Thu, May 31, 2018, 1:38 AM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #4

Minor grievance, but I've never had particularly good luck with search engines and the term "nix". Usually I get things for `*nix` or NixOS. Even if I search for `nix package manager`, I would get things like "Congress nixes package ..." as the top few results.

Hm, top result for me with that search. I think search results are personalized on my end as they are usually highly relevant. Are you incognito or something?

Re: Learning Nix by Example: Building FFmpeg 4.0

#14

Post by __david__ » Thu, May 31, 2018, 8:46 AM UTC

Annatar wrote: post #12

__david__ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nix package manager also runs on macOS. Think of it as a cross platform Homebrew. Your other objections apply to all package managers, and not just Nix.

I'm principally against abstracting package management across platforms, because experience has taught me that the software management subsystem of the target platform is the best system for that platform. I see no point in this abstraction since I understand that the best packaging format is the native format, and I've no problem mastering the native format.

Then you should also be happy to know that NixOS is an OS where Nix packages are the native package system.

Re: Learning Nix by Example: Building FFmpeg 4.0

#15

Post by Annatar » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 11:53 AM UTC

__david__ wrote: post #14

Annatar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm principally against abstracting package management across platforms, because experience has taught me that the software management subsystem of the target platform is the best system for that platform. I see no point in this abstraction since I understand that the best packaging format is the native format, and I've no problem mastering the native format.

Then you should also be happy to know that NixOS is an OS where Nix packages are the native package system.

I couldn't care less about NixOS, as I'm a UNIX (IRIX, Solaris, illumos/SmartOS, HP-UX) guy and always will be. I run Solaris 10 and SmartOS on my infrastructure, before that I ran IRIX and HP-UX as well on it.