There isn't a single user focused reason in "Why Lix?" The alleged benefits of forking exclusively focus on making developers lives easier.
Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
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Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#22This is just a fork of nixpkgs and nix no?
This looks to be a fork of NixCpp only. There is also https://aux.computer that appears to be (the beginning of) a fork of nixpkgs.
Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#23Initially I was like, "Oh cool, a new layer on top of Nix to make it more accessible!" And then read on to see it's basically just the NixCpp fork from save-nix-together now with Meson. I guess gradually moving to Rust is a cool idea, but there also exists tvix in that space with a greenfield version in Rust.
Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#24What's the goal here? As a Nix[OS] user for a couple years now, the underlying Nix impl is not really on my radar for personal problems i have with Nix. It's entirely about the language and (lack of) language-tooling. I write typed systems on purpose during my day/hobby programming, and dynamic untyped experiences are just no fun for me personally. Nickel is far more interesting to me on my checklist of UX issues. Ki…
I agree, as a new user I think Nix(os/pkgs)'s deficiencies are:
1. Documentation doesn't really explain how NixPkgs works and thus there is a lot of magic that is unintuitive for a new user.
2. The Nix language has a number of annoying gotchas. I always go through several rounds of syntax errors before several rounds of name errors before code can run.
3. Whence this definition? NixPkgs' extreme inversion of control approach makes it hard to guess by looking at code, and I haven't found how to set up good tooling.
4. Clickability. Sometimes you just want an official way to turn things on and off or choose defaults and there is no officially-supported GUI helper. This makes it hard to expect that people will start to use Nix who aren't basically functional programmers already. I don't think I could convince people to use it.
5. Efficiency. Long-ish build times for simple changes, too much memory use to run nixos-rebuild on a small computer.
Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#25> Plans include a gradual, piecewise introduction of the memory-safe Rust programming language Oh cool, I had "rewrite in Rust" on my bingo card. Anyway this doesn't seem to be much more than a %s/nix/lix/g so far. I'm all for the right to rage-fork something, but you should be clear that it's not a new project. https://git.lix.systems/lix-project/lix/commits/branch/main You can see one of their most recent contribut…
Well, they do say it's a fork in the About and FAQ pages. I'm guessing the front page's aim is to be broader, more newbie-friendly, more forward-looking, etc. > Oh cool, I had "rewrite in Rust" on my bingo card You may also be curious about tvix, which is a greenfield version in Rust, not a fork (but still pretty feature-incomplete, iiuc).
Ya, the best case here is that we end up with another implementation with its own benefits. I think that the existence of Guix and tvix (and others?) is beneficial, and the overarching idea of Nix is too big and useful to silo into just one project with one direction in mind.
Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
>BDFL "Benevolent Dictator For Life", most famously Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu if I recall.
Funny how it probably differs per ~5 years who is the most famous BDFL. I'd have gone for Linus Torvalds as the most famous, or maybe Guido van Rossum.
I’d never seen Shuttleworth labeled a BDFL until this thread.
Your two are the first who come to mind.
Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#27Wait, Nix isn't "modern" anymore?
Can we please, for the love of Flying Spaghetti Monsters, stop calling everything new "modern" as if that word adds something to the quality of the product...
Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have anything against people going their own way but having been on both ends of this kind of rumble in open source my resounding opinion is that you literally cannot please the aggrieved side. It's a mixture of many things — some people are reasonable and just want sensible change, others are dangerous neurotics who need to go outside; both can end up, deliberately or not, using it as blackmail for control —…
>BDFL "Benevolent Dictator For Life", most famously Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu if I recall.
Most famous is probably GvR...
Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#29Re: Lix is a modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many commits has each fork that are not in the other?
Not sure, but afaik, one of the first big changes was to use Meson for building, instead of Dolstra's homegrown build system. Apparently, the switch to Meson was approved, and coded, ages ago, but Dolstra kept dragging his heels on it.
I'm afraid the letter spread some misinformation: The meson RFC has in fact not been approved: https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/132
For a discussion on this, see https://github.com/KFearsoff/nix-drama-explained/issues/1