Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

zero-to-nix.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 227 posts

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#181

Post by djm_ »

pxc wrote: post #157
djm_ wrote: post #132

As a Mac-using Python shop, we had serious file-sync performance issues when mounting our codebase inside a container via docker-compose. Nix completely freed us from them and allowed us to develop with Python natively speedily and without all the serious faff & headaches that usually comes with getting reproducible builds on everyone machines. If you'd like to know more, I spoke at DjangoCon Europe late last year [1…

This is great! Also directly answers some questions commenters have given elsewhere on this submission, e.g., 'why not Docker?'.

Yes! And it’s actually not either/or for us, we still use Docker Compose to run our services (Redis, PostgreSQL, etc) that don’t require file syncing with the host. It’s good at that.

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#182

Post by mfsch »

wingmanjd wrote: post #21
cole-h wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd also suggest that, once you _do_ feel comfortable enough to step foot into NixOS territory, that you start off by version-controlling your configuration. It doesn't necessarily have to be public, but I've found it very helpful in the past when I've had to debug various issues due to misconfiguration by me.

Do you symlink your config repo to /etc/nixos or something else? So far, I've just been rsyncing my config repo folder after I modify it.

You can also use `git init --separate-git-dir=~/something /etc/nixos` to keep the git data in your user directory while the config remains in the default location. I like this solution because it keeps the stuff I want to do as root (configuring the system) separate from what I want to do as regular user (tracking changes of the configuration).

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#183

Post by pxc »

OmarAssadi wrote: post #178
lynndotpy wrote: post #52

I 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

Nix is pretty usable for both desktops and headless servers. Personally, I even use it on macOS without much trouble. My system looks like any other install of Ventura, but all of my configuration, ranging from the terminal and VS Code to macOS-specific system preferences and Safari, is done declaratively in Nix [1]. The overwhelming majority of my installed software also comes from Nix packages, with some exceptions…

Holy crap! I had no idea that Nix-Darwin will even install, configure, and wrap Homebrew for you now. That's awesome. Love the inclusive, impure approach.

The Homebrew module for Nix-Darwin also looks awesome, like extremely feature-complete.

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#184

Post by SuperSandro2000 »

hiimshort wrote: post #108
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #96

I would love to see a discussion from somebody who really likes Nix on why it isn't ready for prime time yet/just play devil's advocate aloud on why it isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. I feel like I must not be doing anything "serious" enough to need package reproducibility at that high level. I'm aware of things like git checkout/tags, package-lock.json, Cargo.lock, Docker image tags. What is a real worl…

I love Nix, all of my machines run NixOS, but I think it's 5-10 years out from widespread adoption. Currently the biggest issues have to do with severely lacking documentation, lack of developer tooling (missing things like LSP), very slow iteration cycles, confusing or impossible to understand errors, and even naming (Nix refers to the language, package manager, cli, community, etc). That said, right now it's still…

> (Nix refers to the language, package manager, cli, community, etc)

Thats wrong. It refers to exactly two things: the language and the cli that implements that and is a package manager at the same time.

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#185

Post by unshavedyak »

pxc wrote: post #156
Macha wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of politics (see RFC 49, 134, 136), I don't see this actually happening that soon. There is agreement in principle to carve out a store only Nix so the no-flakes crowd can build their own UI on it which is held by them as a pre-requisite to any stabilisation of flakes, along with some bad blood of it being announced by blog post. But it's slow because the project maintainer and chief flakes advocate doesn't w…

The Nix team, including the Nix author and chief developer of flakes (upstream in this thread, so be kind all), is also working right now on enabling the nix3 UI for non-flakes setups as well: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2023-01-16-nix-team-meeting-mi... Consensus is hard but I'm glad to see people coming together on this. Really looking forward to seeing the new Nix command and flakes move forward (independently)

Funny i don't want a UI, i just want better type systems so some random field is easily known. I know it's difficult, but strictly from a user experience - that's all i want lol.

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#186

Post by unshavedyak »

JamesSwift wrote: post #135
unshavedyak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the `nix3 interface`? I use NixOS with Flakes, but frankly it's quite obtuse lol. I don't even know how to specifically update my `nix`. I updated to the latest release the other week and my `nix` CLI is on `2.11`. Are you referencing a 3.0 version of the `nix` CLI? If is there a summary somewhere on what is different between 2.xx and 3.0? Though i still have no clue how to update to 3.0 if i wanted to. Search…

> I don't even know how to specifically update my `nix` I just clean reinstalled when I went from v2 to v3. Thats the great thing about nix... the rebuilt system is still the same after I installed : ) Note that in nix v3, updating nix is a simple `sudo nix upgrade-nix`, which is really nice.

Is that with flakes though? That's my thing, i'm using flakes, and it's difficult to know what is with flakes or without.

Updating my root `nixpkgs` did seem to update my `nix` CLI, but that felt a bit heavy handed. I had a difficult time finding out how to override just the Nix CLI version.

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#187

Post by SuperSandro2000 »

YuukiRey wrote: post #173
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #96

I would love to see a discussion from somebody who really likes Nix on why it isn't ready for prime time yet/just play devil's advocate aloud on why it isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. I feel like I must not be doing anything "serious" enough to need package reproducibility at that high level. I'm aware of things like git checkout/tags, package-lock.json, Cargo.lock, Docker image tags. What is a real worl…

Some things are much harder in practice than in theory. I recently had to work with a JavaScript project that doesn’t get a lot of maintenance love. It requires a JavaScript version that is no longer part of Nixpkgs. Now try figuring out how to build just that version and also make Yarn use that version. It’s not incredibly hard but the documentation is not obvious to find. Then go on a very very long walk while your…

You have similar but yet different problems on other distros, too.

For example if you want to use a very old node version then you either find a prerecompilation for your distro or also compile it yourself. The precompilation might be linked against an older glibc version or compiling does not work with your distros because your icu version is incompatible and then you are in the same rabbit hole.

volta "just works" because it was specifically designed to achieve one defined purpose run on a few platforms and is well tested on those. nix is general and cannot achieve everything. Somewhere maintainers need to cut a line otherwise things get completely out of hand.

Network is restricted in the sandbox because otherwise reproducibility would be severely reduced and we could not guarantee that the outputs match what we expect them to be. Also downloaded binaries would usually need patching anyway.

Also you are not supposed to take everything from nixpkgs. Like on any other distro if you are developing something the ecosystems own tools are the most well equipped and have all the versions. The versions in nixpkgs are the versions we need for other packages and NixOS, not every possible version you could need to develop a project with specific requirements necessarily.

PS: volta did not just work on my NixOS machine because it assumes that relative to glibc there will be a lib directory where it can place things.

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#188

Post by pxc »

unshavedyak wrote: post #185
pxc wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nix team, including the Nix author and chief developer of flakes (upstream in this thread, so be kind all), is also working right now on enabling the nix3 UI for non-flakes setups as well: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2023-01-16-nix-team-meeting-mi... Consensus is hard but I'm glad to see people coming together on this. Really looking forward to seeing the new Nix command and flakes move forward (independently)

Funny i don't want a UI, i just want better type systems so some random field is easily known. I know it's difficult, but strictly from a user experience - that's all i want lol.

I'm really optimistic about Nickel, which is a new DSL based on Nix (in terms of inspiration) and designed for Nixpkgs-like use, but informed by the designs of other DSLs in the same space (e.g., Starlark, CUE, JSonnet).

One of the things it adds over Nix's design is types (it grew out of early efforts to add gradual typing to Nix). It has a gradual typing system with 'contracts' for dealing with untyped code.

I have spent some time doing exercises and examples in it, first in Nix code and then translating it to Nickel. It feels very Nix-y, in the best way, and I think in the end it will be very nice to use.

Definitely check it out if you have thoughts about Nixlang and how it could be better! Development is very active and the maintainers seem quite appreciative of testing and feedback.

https://github.com/tweag/nickel

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#189

Post by SuperSandro2000 »

FrozenCow wrote: post #176
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #96

I would love to see a discussion from somebody who really likes Nix on why it isn't ready for prime time yet/just play devil's advocate aloud on why it isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. I feel like I must not be doing anything "serious" enough to need package reproducibility at that high level. I'm aware of things like git checkout/tags, package-lock.json, Cargo.lock, Docker image tags. What is a real worl…

Personally, I think because its feature-set is currently very much "scattered". Nix is in the transition to use 'flakes': a new concept that gives a bit more structure and allows easier reuse of Nix packages, NixOS modules and more. In addition it includes a standardized 'lock' file. Lock files are quite useful (or even essential) for reproducibility. However, it is in experimental phase for more than 4 years now. It…

> It is behind a configuration flag, so it isn't obvious how to use it.

It is: the error message tells you exactly how to activate it.

> A division in community, projects and documentation happens this way.

No, not really. flakes are not fundamentally different, they just replace channels, a very small component, with something new and more powerful. You can convert any NixOS config in minutes if you just import the configuration.nix, add --impure and add a nixpkgs input.

> its surrounding CLI tools aren't mentioned in the official docs.

There is an entire section in the nix manual about them https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/command-ref/experimental...

> This makes those people look for and create their own solutions:

Also not entirely true. Before flakes there where several projects like niv which are now more and more in maintenance mode and got replaced by flakes. There was a need for a feature like flakes in the community for a long time and it it slowly forming shape.

> This results in multiple documentation sites:

Yes, like for any other big ecosystem. There will grow community maintained wiki's, opinionated websites, guides and resources. Is that necessarily a bad thing? We can't prevent people from creating them and not everything fits into the official guide especially if it is opinionated.

> Multiple wrapping tools for development environments:

Same thing. nix-shell is pretty basic and does not have every bell and whistle and people in the community build on top of that, create wrappers and new tools and try to build the bells and whistles. Similar things for example happened in the debian community with for example aptitude and synaptics.

> I'm still hoping Nix flakes will become the default

It will and the tools you listed above won't go away. Flakes do not attempt to replace them and what they try to achieve but to support them.

Re: Zero to Nix, an unofficial, opinionated, gentle introduction to Nix

#190

Post by SuperSandro2000 »

331c8c71 wrote: post #151
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #96

I would love to see a discussion from somebody who really likes Nix on why it isn't ready for prime time yet/just play devil's advocate aloud on why it isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. I feel like I must not be doing anything "serious" enough to need package reproducibility at that high level. I'm aware of things like git checkout/tags, package-lock.json, Cargo.lock, Docker image tags. What is a real worl…

> would love to see a discussion from somebody who really likes Nix on why it isn't ready for prime time yet The daemon needs to be run as root root in a standard multi-user install which rules out HPC-like envs where Nix would actually shine. There are workarounds but none of them official. Tooling and documentation are on the same level as for a random esoteric programming language. I love Nix but have been hesitan…

> There are workarounds but none of them official.

But does it need to be official? Wouldn't that at the same time bloat nix even more? Isn't it enough if core people of the community for example build https://github.com/nix-community/nix-user-chroot ?

> In reality the only easy way to get it done is to use additional non-foss software

That is not true at all. You can use a nix docker image, a 5 line nix file and 2 commands to do a very basic CI pipeline almost anywhere.

Post reply on HN