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Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

dgt.is

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Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#11

Post by craftkiller »

> ZFS on Linux [...] The recommended way to do this is to use LUKS, not native ZFS encryption.

FWIW I've been using native zfs encryption on nixos and it works great. It lacks neat features like being TPM-backed or having multiple keys, but if all you need is password-based encryption then I think native ZFS encryption is better since you'll be able to do encrypted zfs send/recv, you'll have granular control over which datasets are encrypted (or encrypted with different passwords), you'd get cross-platform support for the encryption (for example, my FreeBSD home server can receive and decrypt my laptop backups), and you aren't adding another layer of complexity.

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#12

Post by jonotime »

unstruktured wrote: post #3

I don't think he touched on whether server side is a more valid use case, but was nice to read someone elses take on using it for a desktop. Thanks for the contribution. He did find functional programming to be sort of mystic so I don't know if I trust his take on assesing the nix language itself. TLDR; just stick with ubuntu or arch unless you feel like experimenting

Author here. Your TLDR is spot on. Yes, my intent was to be on desktop use since most things I read dont consider that specifically. I did talk about how I would keep this running on some simple home servers since I think that's where Nix shines. But some of my servers are raspberry pis, which I mentioned I am worried to run Nix on due to resource limitations. I should probably just try it.

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#13

Post by aszen »

rowanG077 wrote: post #6

Nix for me has been a great source of stability. I used to run ubuntu and was never happy. Packages randomly broke, the UI lagged a lot, I always had to dig to get things working. One day when I head a uni deadline an automated updated destroyed my wifi funcionality. I had some experience with nix from work so in anger I installed NixOS. Wifi worked and I finished my uni assignment. Haven't installed anything else on…

I now use distrobox to run random binaries in a container. It's faster and convenient

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#14

Post by dhon_ »

jonotime wrote: post #12
unstruktured wrote: post #3

I don't think he touched on whether server side is a more valid use case, but was nice to read someone elses take on using it for a desktop. Thanks for the contribution. He did find functional programming to be sort of mystic so I don't know if I trust his take on assesing the nix language itself. TLDR; just stick with ubuntu or arch unless you feel like experimenting

Author here. Your TLDR is spot on. Yes, my intent was to be on desktop use since most things I read dont consider that specifically. I did talk about how I would keep this running on some simple home servers since I think that's where Nix shines. But some of my servers are raspberry pis, which I mentioned I am worried to run Nix on due to resource limitations. I should probably just try it.

I wish remote build/deploy for Raspberry Pi was in a better state - it seems like a perfect fit for NixOS.

I've got x86 servers running NixOS that are deployed using Colmena, but it seems to fall apart when I add cross compilation into the mix.

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#15

Post by ris »

I think this is quite a fair commentry (although I quite like the Nix language personally) - as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop. For me it shines on servers and development environments.

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#16

Post by tuananh »

ris wrote: post #15

I think this is quite a fair commentry (although I quite like the Nix language personally) - as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop. For me it shines on servers and development environments.

> as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop

that's not every encouraging :)

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#17

Post by nunez »

I'd like more clarity on this:

> The advantage over docker here is that (when using Flakes) Nix builds are completely reproducible. Docker containers may be isolated, but surprisingly they are not deterministic out of the box. With some work you can make docker deterministic, but thats what you need, its much easier to use Nix.

as the whole purpose of the Dockerfile is to create a reproducible environment.

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#18

Post by ris »

tuananh wrote: post #16
ris wrote: post #15

I think this is quite a fair commentry (although I quite like the Nix language personally) - as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop. For me it shines on servers and development environments.

> as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop that's not every encouraging :)

Why? It just isn't what draws me to Nix.

I've never even really tried NixOS on the desktop TBH.

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#19

Post by nunez »

My setup is a smorgasbord of dotfiles and symlinks. It's been built up over 13 years, so it's very well seasoned and has served me well, but I've long been meaning to move to Nix to make my setup cleaner. The bad in this article isn't that bad, so now I'm amped even more to do this!

Re: Nix – Death by a Thousand Cuts

#20

Post by tuananh »

ris wrote: post #18
tuananh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop that's not every encouraging :)

Why? It just isn't what draws me to Nix. I've never even really tried NixOS on the desktop TBH.

nothing. it's just from someone with no experience with nix like me, it feel weird that someone is already deep into Nix but isn't tempted to use it daily.
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