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Why I love NixOS

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Re: Why I love NixOS

#191

Post by rendaw »

furryrain wrote: post #179
rendaw wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you do those ad-hoc though? I was looking into this too. I feel like it requires a system config change, apply, and then you need to do container start + machinectl login to actually get a shell. That's definitely what I want... most of the time.

Yes, NixOS containers can be run in: * declarative mode, where your guest config is defined within your host config, or * imperative mode, where your guest NixOS config is defined in a separate file. You can choose to reuse config between host and guest config files, of course. It sounds like you want imperative containers. Here's the docs: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/#sec-imperative-contai...

Oh I totally missed that!

Re: Why I love NixOS

#192

Post by laserbeam »

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…

Can you share some good examples of how you use nix shells with python for one off scripts? I am still figuring out how python interacts with nixos :(

Re: Why I love NixOS

#193

Post by laserbeam »

smrq wrote: post #167
gradstudent wrote: post #132

I tried NixOS a few months ago, when I had to choose a new OS for my laptop. On the one hand, it's great, as so many others here and TFA have attested. Declaratively specifying your system configuration and using snapshots to keep track of everything is a complete game-changer. Similarly great is the absolutely huge universe of installable packages. The coverage here is so much better than what's on offer from Ubuntu…

The most NixOS comment I've seen yet was when I was trying to find out about `mkOutOfStoreSymlink`, which lead me to this thread: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-to-manage-dotfiles-with-ho... > Hi, I just wanted to know, where can I find the documentation to know more about this contrib.lib.file.mkOutOfStoreSymlink option ? > Well, since is a very simple function, no documentation is really needed. I've been gradua…

That’s my feeling when reading nixos forums. People are willing to help but don’t realize how little newbies know about nix when asking for help. The first month of nixos was a massive uphill climb for me, and that knowledge doesn’t stick well because I get to interact with nix every few months to tweak things, not weekly or daily.

It’s a solid os, and I’m enjoying it, and I love that I can’t break things while tweaking. But the docs are and discussion threads are not written for beginners (it’s really hard to write for beginners).

Re: Why I love NixOS

#194

Post by arianvanp »

nullbyte808 wrote: post #182
sshine wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I've been trying to get nixd LSP to work with Claude Code but I got stuck as they gatekeep it behind their "plugin" system and you can't just configure it in settings.json to point to a nix store path like mcps :(

Re: Why I love NixOS

#195

Post by ulbu »

accelbred wrote: post #97
gausswho wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

guix would like a word

Does guix have a flake equivalent yet?

different ui. you can pull in different commits of channels (packages repos) and take packages from them. but it’s opt-in, no lock-file snapshots.

https://guix.gnu.org/manual/1.5.0/en/html_node/Inferiors.htm...

Re: Why I love NixOS

#196

Post by arianvanp »

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.

A snapshot of your build folder. Not even the sources. This is my other problem with mainstream Distros. Extending them is completely opaque. NixOS is source based and anything and everything can be updated by the user. Need some patch from kernel ML? 1 line of code. Need a Bugfix in your IDE that hasn't landed in a release? 1 line of code.

There is no distinction between package maintainers and end users. They have the same power.

In the meantime i dont expect Debian users to ever write a package themselves or to modify one.

In nixOS you do it all the time

Re: Why I love NixOS

#197

Post by rowanG077 »

troad wrote: post #151
rowanG077 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree at all. Just look at these derivations: https://codeberg.org/guix/guix/src/branch/master/gnu/package... I counted and you regularly see this: "))))))))))" at the end. This is not a language that is optimizing for being written by humans.

> This is not a language that is optimizing for being written by humans I've taken a look at the code - having never written a line of Guix in my life - and it seems very readable to me. It's cleanly structured and makes good use of indentation. The string "))))))))))", which you claim you're seeing 'regularly', appears exactly twice in 4,580 lines of code. It's the longest parens string that appears in the file. See…

I indeed searched for the longest chain. Something that happens in 4.5k lines twice is hardly rare. And even if you take away a brace it occurs even more frequently.

And yes your example is better, but still terrible. The point is not the formatting. The point is that there is that 10 deep nested code is just not easy to understand. I would also say a line of c/python that does 10 nested function calls as unreadable. But they do not encourage this, whereas with lisp its modus operandi to write such incantation.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#198

Post by globular-toast »

rowanG077 wrote: post #92
Pay08 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reads almost the exact same as any functional C-style language. Not to mention that specifically for Guix, you're going to be writing the (name value) form for 99% of it.

I don't agree at all. Just look at these derivations: https://codeberg.org/guix/guix/src/branch/master/gnu/package... I counted and you regularly see this: "))))))))))" at the end. This is not a language that is optimizing for being written by humans.

Lisp programmers have used editors that count the parens for them for decades. Many use something like paredit that simply automatically adds the final paren. I've written significant amounts of Lisp and you simply don't see the parens. You might as well complain about French having all those accents. It's just a different language. Learn it and you'll see why.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#199

Post by exe34 »

fragmede wrote: post #152
qiine wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pasting the generally horrible error messages is also quite effective!

Pasting? Give Claude/codex the ability to go fix it itself and have it deal with it directly.

no thank you, there are things I do not want Claude to have rwx on. like my entire f*cking system. I run llms in a docker container with just the folder I'm working in.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#200

Post by globular-toast »

baalimago wrote: post #187

"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.

I love my kitchen knife and I love Emacs. More love is a good thing. Unless you're the kind of person who thinks not loving is better because you've got nothing to lose.
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