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Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

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Re: Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

#41

Post by rkomorn »

rkomorn wrote: post #40
nextos wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what were the friction points? I migrated from Arch to Nix several years back because I found maintenance to be incredibly easy and it also allows me to test things without fear. Arch and other imperative distros are still superior for some workflows, but you can always run something imperative inside Nix like FHSEnv or DistroBox. Nix is also available in Arch extra, so it's also possible to do t…

For me (recent NixOS user), it's mainly two things: - for every configuration item in the software I use, I basically need to learn the way to NixOS-configure it (assuming I don't want to raw-configure everything) - experimentation is onerous (unless there are workflows I don't know), for example: messing with my sway config requires rebuild switches I'm not bailing (yet?) but the "ergonomics", well, don't feel ergon…

Oh, and the NixOS / HomeManager split feels very funky, but NixOS life without HomeManager seems unreasonable for a daily driver laptop.

Re: Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

#42

Post by soraminazuki »

q3k wrote: post #12
Ericson2314 wrote: post #9

The leaky abstraction argument is itself leakly. Yes, it would be nice if we weren't putting lipstick on a Unix pig, but Nix never promised the underlying thing wasn't Unix. It sounds to me like he is moving the goalposts. If he wanted to run a bunch of shitty precompiled binaries from NPM for work, I would simply create a normie Ubuntu container or whatever and use that. There is no reason one's personal configurati…

Right, the problem is that this leaky abstraction effectively now requires you're both good at Nix and good at fixing whatever tool it is that is refusing to work with Nix. That usually means diving deep into build systems, code that makes wrong assumptions, and probably other hairy topics. In return you do get a state of the art system, but you very often need to put in work you otherwise wouldn't need to. I don't m…

I don't see what the problem is. What Nix is doing is far more transparent than the article's preferred solution of Docker images. While Docker images are entire distros crammed into a binary blob, Nix derivations are inspectable and customizable. Nix uses standard mechanisms to configure software, like config files and environment variables. It really isn't black magic.

Also contrary to popular opinion, Nix configs are actually easier to comprehend and maintain than configs written in Chef, Ansible, or Kubernetes. Having a proper language for describing large and complex pure data helps.

Re: Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

#43

Post by lylejantzi3rd »

q3k wrote: post #24
koiueo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely downvote on HN, but when I do, it must be a comment promoting JSON over any other configuration language (sorry) Nix isn't even that arcane. Its documentation simply sucks. Once you grasp the idea, it feels almost great

> Nix isn't even that arcane. It's somewhat quirky though :) https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Nix_Language_Quirks https://md.darmstadt.ccc.de/xtNP7JuIQ5iNW1FjuhUccw (but then again, what language isn't...)

Why not just use BASH or Python?

Re: Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

#44

Post by q3k »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #43
q3k wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nix isn't even that arcane. It's somewhat quirky though :) https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Nix_Language_Quirks https://md.darmstadt.ccc.de/xtNP7JuIQ5iNW1FjuhUccw (but then again, what language isn't...)

Why not just use BASH or Python?

The fundamental basis of Nix is that it's a purely functional programming language without side effects. The whole thing breaks apart otherwise. And with a purpose-specific programming language, there's some big quality of life things (for example, low friction multiline strings with interpolation, the ability to use dashes in identifiers for package names, ...).

(and, when you can do without side effects, functional programming is really simple and productive!)

Re: Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

#46

Post by nextos »

rkomorn wrote: post #41
rkomorn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me (recent NixOS user), it's mainly two things: - for every configuration item in the software I use, I basically need to learn the way to NixOS-configure it (assuming I don't want to raw-configure everything) - experimentation is onerous (unless there are workflows I don't know), for example: messing with my sway config requires rebuild switches I'm not bailing (yet?) but the "ergonomics", well, don't feel ergon…

Oh, and the NixOS / HomeManager split feels very funky, but NixOS life without HomeManager seems unreasonable for a daily driver laptop.

What parts of your workflow rely on HomeManager?

Re: Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

#47

Post by rkomorn »

nextos wrote: post #46
rkomorn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, and the NixOS / HomeManager split feels very funky, but NixOS life without HomeManager seems unreasonable for a daily driver laptop.

What parts of your workflow rely on HomeManager?

sway and waybar's configuration management is better through HomeManager (again: unless I basically raw-configure everything). Not quite sure where in nixpkgs swayidle configs would go, based on the sway module.

Some other user-levels get tossed in there by virtue of "since HomeManager's there, I may as well use it".

It seems that most wiki pages that I see that have both NixOS and HomeManager sections at the very least make HomeManager seem more featureful or flexible.

Re: Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

#48

Post by nextos »

rkomorn wrote: post #47
nextos wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What parts of your workflow rely on HomeManager?

sway and waybar's configuration management is better through HomeManager (again: unless I basically raw-configure everything). Not quite sure where in nixpkgs swayidle configs would go, based on the sway module. Some other user-levels get tossed in there by virtue of "since HomeManager's there, I may as well use it". It seems that most wiki pages that I see that have both NixOS and HomeManager sections at the very le…

I've personally found a good compromise between using NixOS (without Home Manager) and classical dotfiles for home. My dotfiles are independent of the distribution, and also work in e.g. Arch.

Re: Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

#49

Post by rkomorn »

nextos wrote: post #48
rkomorn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sway and waybar's configuration management is better through HomeManager (again: unless I basically raw-configure everything). Not quite sure where in nixpkgs swayidle configs would go, based on the sway module. Some other user-levels get tossed in there by virtue of "since HomeManager's there, I may as well use it". It seems that most wiki pages that I see that have both NixOS and HomeManager sections at the very le…

I've personally found a good compromise between using NixOS (without Home Manager) and classical dotfiles for home. My dotfiles are independent of the distribution, and also work in e.g. Arch.

I'm actually writing a script that takes my materialized NixOS-managed configs and backs them up in git so I can indeed port them to another distro if I decide to move away from NixOS (hedging my bets since NixOS is my 5th different OS/distro on this laptop).

Not having NixOS manage configs (itself or via HomeManager), though, very much reduces the value proposition of NixOS in my mind.

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