Nix + FreeBSD would be interesting
Why I love NixOS
281–290 of 323 posts
Re: Why I love NixOS
#282Nix is a really good good good approach to manage packages. I've configured an entire asahi setup with for my m2 and can't be happier. It's not without it's quirks and nixlang itself is a bit cumbersome to express what you want. However, AI is a great fit to write flakes. You can easily understand the generated code and it gives a power to "review" the changes before applying them. And while nixos is amazing, I think…
Definitely interested! I've reinstalled Fedora Asahi Remix several times on my old M1 after fiddling my way into a broken state. NixOS sounds like a tinkerer's dream but getting started is a bit intimidating.
Re: Why I love NixOS
#283The 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…
> it's the only game in town Hey now, LLMs are pretty good at Guix, too.
LLMs are game changers for guix, gemini was able to create manifests for absolutely anything I asked for with very few iterations.
Re: Why I love NixOS
#284dont know. you can create a config package with most distribution. i do config packages for debian. ai can help you on it. you tag it as config-smthg. you save it . you can create a config with a possible rollback organically by just uninstalling it or installing version-x.
with this you get atomic changes.
Re: Why I love NixOS
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, the difference is that there is no way in hell that I want to give an AI assistant full access to configure my system live. With a declarative config, the only access it needs is to an isolated git repo.
But if the declaritive file is not read/understood, what is the difference? At some point, you're gonna run sudo nixos-rebuild, and that is the whole system on the line.
> But if the declaritive file is not read/understood, what is the difference?
Well the main difference is precisely that I have a clear opportunity to read and understand the declarative file.
But even if something were to sneak in there, rolling back is now trivial.
Re: Why I love NixOS
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 :(
There’s a NixOS MCP, it’s pretty good
Re: Why I love NixOS
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if the declaritive file is not read/understood, what is the difference? At some point, you're gonna run sudo nixos-rebuild, and that is the whole system on the line.
> But if the declaritive file is not read/understood, what is the difference? Well the main difference is precisely that I have a clear opportunity to read and understand the declarative file. But even if something were to sneak in there, rolling back is now trivial.
This whole thing has been about explicitly using LLM instead of learning nix. So sure, definitely agree with about the niceness of using nix in general if that is all you are saying, but also not sure what you are trying to argue for anymore.
Re: Why I love NixOS
#288After having done the switch to nixOS, I can confidently say that managing a system any other way (like with apt/brew + 20 handwritten bash scripts) really is neanderthal technology and nix is superior in every single way. It's also great for the AI era, copilot is really good with that stuff.
Yeah, I've been using Unixey stuff for almost twenty years now (most of it Linux, and fell for the siren song of macOS for about four of them). I liked Arch and Ubuntu and Mint and OpenSUSE well enough when I used them first, but once I actually tried NixOS it felt so obviously correct that it started to bother me that it's not the default for everything. Being able to temporarily install things with nix-shell is gam…
> those FSF-approved distros can be a real headache for people who actually have to use their computers.
This is now a tired discussion; the use of nonguix (https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix) is well documented, there is no practical difference after initial setup between using a regular distro and one of “those FSF-approved distros”
I am sure you don't do it on purpose, but could you stop spreading FUD? (specially given you acknowledge “ I've considered changing to GNU Guix System”, so you're here relaying 3rd party opinions, not your own)
Re: Why I love NixOS
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
So relying on closed source code using a closed model to configure a free OS. That's a step back.
On the contrary, the model doesn't actually add any lock-in. When GP wants to switch to free model the config files are still there. There's no lock-in, as I see it.
It is not about lock-in, it is about free software being usable without resorting to non-free software. One of the free models is usable for this would be a better shift and that might be workable but I'm not sure about how well they'd work.
Re: Why I love NixOS
#290I've recently switched to nix as a way to encode my environment across my server and work / private devices a bit more than just having some Brewfiles. I know it's not worth it for the computer switch every few years but having a somewhat opinionated place to centralize my config is worth it over regular dot files. My first impression after a week of using: - I really dislike the complexity of terraform, and this is…
I just make my terminal history infinite and ctrl+r "flake".