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Why I love NixOS

birkey.co

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Re: Why I love NixOS

#181

Post by nullbyte808 »

alembic_fumes wrote: post #104

The author almost touches on the one more topic that I adore about Nix, but ends up just so missing it: NixOS is absolutely incredible for its ability to be configured through AI tooling. And I don't mean that it's better than other operating systems, I mean that it's the only game in town. I've been using Nix, both the package manager and the operating system, for years by now. I agree with all of the author's point…

I recently fixed the pipewire audio stutters by just giving gemini my flake and asking how to fix it. It suggested a few fixes and low and behold they were gone! Here's my flake with impermanence + yubikey login: https://github.com/leonewt0n/nixos

Re: Why I love NixOS

#182

Post by nullbyte808 »

sshine wrote: post #112
alembic_fumes wrote: post #104

The author almost touches on the one more topic that I adore about Nix, but ends up just so missing it: NixOS is absolutely incredible for its ability to be configured through AI tooling. And I don't mean that it's better than other operating systems, I mean that it's the only game in town. I've been using Nix, both the package manager and the operating system, for years by now. I agree with all of the author's point…

As a NixOS user for 3 years, and a Claude user for 1+ year, I agree with you that it's an ideal fit. I've been very happy with, for example, how Claude can configure GNOME via dconf settings: tweaking those settings declaratively requires cross-domain knowledge and knowing where to dig. But Claude just knows. But trying to set up an environment for one of those perpetually running AIs, and asking it to refactor its o…

also the AI hallucinating nix options. I have to constantly check https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=unstable

Re: Why I love NixOS

#183

Post by nullbyte808 »

Iron_Ninja5 wrote: post #159
alembic_fumes wrote: post #104

The author almost touches on the one more topic that I adore about Nix, but ends up just so missing it: NixOS is absolutely incredible for its ability to be configured through AI tooling. And I don't mean that it's better than other operating systems, I mean that it's the only game in town. I've been using Nix, both the package manager and the operating system, for years by now. I agree with all of the author's point…

This feels like a very high-tech solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. Why involve an LLM to install Hyprland when "sudo dnf install hyprland" works fine? I feel like you're mistaking Nix being 'AI-ready' as a feature, when in reality, you're just forced to use an LLM because Nix is too annoying to manage manually.

Some things are not that simple and nix options come in handy automating other packages and services needed.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#184

Post by nullbyte808 »

DHolzer wrote: post #55

I switched over to Nix about a year ago. I was a Windows user before that for 30 years and tried Linux a couple of times, but it never stuck. Now I know I will never touch Windows again. With NixOS I've finally found a system that actually works for me — and the full OS configuration is in a repo. My god, I love it so much. Sometimes I even prefer nix-shells over uv for quick one-off Python scripts. I cannot sufficie…

I almost switched back to Fedora Bazzite to get a working gamescope, but realized I can get HDR in sway and its actually more stable than Valve's mess of gamescope. Even though I have to use "--unsupported-gpu" flag, my Nvidia card works wonders in Sway, where as gamescope gives me a blinking cursor and segfaults.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#185

Post by orbital-decay »

charlieflowers wrote: post #172
alembic_fumes wrote: post #104

The author almost touches on the one more topic that I adore about Nix, but ends up just so missing it: NixOS is absolutely incredible for its ability to be configured through AI tooling. And I don't mean that it's better than other operating systems, I mean that it's the only game in town. I've been using Nix, both the package manager and the operating system, for years by now. I agree with all of the author's point…

Tell me if I'm understanding you correctly. I summarize this in my head as, "This person loves NixOS because it gave him GitOps for his OS."

Yes. That's why I'm using NixOS as well, despite all the terrible jank it has.

Automating my homelab config with coding machines not only hides the jank, but also makes NixOS feel like some actual agentic OS Microsoft wants, or rather an ad-hoc prototype. I literally just tell it what to do and describe issues if I have any. But again I have written a ton of Nix previously and I'm able to verify what it does, most of the time it's correct but it's not perfect.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#187

Post by baalimago »

"Loving" any OS is strange to me. It's just a tool. I don't love my kitchen knife, or car. Nor do I love my computer, or any application on it.

Web3, Rust, NixOS. The holy trinity of cult-like appreciation. I do wonder what brings forth such fanaticism.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#188

Post by sidkshatriya »

exitb wrote: post #174
sidkshatriya wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a simple workflow with mutable systems like Fedora that I think a lot of people are missing. AI could be brought into this workflow also for those who want that: (1) Take a snapshot of your current system (snapper+btrfs on Linux, bectl on FreeBSD+ZFS) (2) Make destructive changes like install a new windows manager, some drivers etc. (3) If everything worked out well, continue (4) If something failed badly, re…

It’s like saying you don’t need a version control system for coding, as you can just make a copy of your sources before making important changes.

I like your analogy and it does make sense.

But note that I did caveat my suggestion: "Of course, a declarative and textual rendition of the configuration is better than bash commands entered on the command line but sometimes you don't need that level of precision."

Re: Why I love NixOS

#189

Post by abdullin »

I liked NixOS pre-LLM era, since it allowed me to manage a couple of servers in a reproducible way. Ability to reboot back to a stable configuration felt like magic.

Nowadays I love it, since I can let Codex manage the servers for me.

“Here is the flake, here is nix module for the server, here is the project source code. Now change all of that so that wildcard certificates work and requests land through systemd socket on a proper go mux endpoint. Don’t come back until you verify it as working”

5 minutes later it came back.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#190

Post by sidkshatriya »

pkulak wrote: post #178
sidkshatriya wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a simple workflow with mutable systems like Fedora that I think a lot of people are missing. AI could be brought into this workflow also for those who want that: (1) Take a snapshot of your current system (snapper+btrfs on Linux, bectl on FreeBSD+ZFS) (2) Make destructive changes like install a new windows manager, some drivers etc. (3) If everything worked out well, continue (4) If something failed badly, re…

That’s a great way to get one of the benefits of nix. But you still can check that snapshot into version control, share it with all your machines, etc.

You're right ... you cant check that snapshot into version control and share with your machines etc. When you need that level of control and need to scale your configuration to other machines NixOS sounds like the right choice. If it's for your own machine and you just want to try out a new windows manager non-destructively use snapshots.
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