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Why I love NixOS

birkey.co

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Re: Why I love NixOS

#51

Post by snailmailman »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #47
bikelang wrote: post #5

I don’t any experience with Nix - but how does it handle software which runs its own updating processes outside the package manager? Specifically thinking about software like Discord, Slack, Docker Desktop, Jetbrains Toolbox, etc. Is the Nix-ism to just reject using such software?

For a personal desktop environment, I just install them normally when there's no up to date nixified option. For some things I've vibe-coded a nix module on github that uses a scheduled github action to check for underlying app updates and then it generates a new hash and tags a release. I've done that for claude code and cursor, which is also an opportunity to let me manage their config files from my nix config.

I run NixOS and the number of times ive been able to install something 'normally' (not via nixpkgs/flake) is approximately zero. You cant go to a website and download a binary and just run it. Almost every program references a shared library and wont be able to find it.

Nixpkgs is very complete in my experience, and in the instances where its not, someone usually has made a flake. The only times ive had to custom-make a flake were extremely new programs, or extremely old ones. Often the newer programs had PRs waiting on nixpkgs anyway, and were only a few days away from building properly in nixos-unstable.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#52

Post by hombre_fatal »

snailmailman wrote: post #51
hombre_fatal wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a personal desktop environment, I just install them normally when there's no up to date nixified option. For some things I've vibe-coded a nix module on github that uses a scheduled github action to check for underlying app updates and then it generates a new hash and tags a release. I've done that for claude code and cursor, which is also an opportunity to let me manage their config files from my nix config.

I run NixOS and the number of times ive been able to install something 'normally' (not via nixpkgs/flake) is approximately zero. You cant go to a website and download a binary and just run it. Almost every program references a shared library and wont be able to find it. Nixpkgs is very complete in my experience, and in the instances where its not, someone usually has made a flake. The only times ive had to custom-mak…

They said Nix, so I was thinking about macOS + nix-darwin when I wrote that.

You're right. When I tried using NixOS as my main desktop experience for a few months, I ended up with a custom derivation for various apps I used. That's probably why I made the claude code and cursor modules in the first place.

But I'm also remembering I made my own keepassxc module because keepassxc wants to be able to write to its config file, but I also want to configure it from nix, so I had to make my module use an activation-time script to merge nix config into the keepassxc config file.

I lost interest in NixOS for day to day personal computing, though vibe-coding modules like that wasn't as big of a dealbreaker as there being almost zero laptops that compete with a Macbook.

The other pain is Linux desktop environment stuff in general like dealing with interactions between a Steam game, wayland, and wayland-satellite. Though NixOS helped there since it was easy for an AI agent to investigate the issue, inspect the nix config, and make a targeted, commented patch that shows up in git.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#53

Post by drdaeman »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #44
edent wrote: post #32

I'd love NixOS more if they had any decent documentation. Everything seems scattered around a dozen forums, a hundred old blog posts, and a thousand issues of "this work on my machine (3 releases ago)".

A lot of us use NixOS/nix yet haven't read any documentation nor hand-written nix ourself. That's Claude Code's job.

If only.

Claude Code has to be actively steered, because while it knows some nixpkgs it surely doesn’t know it enough. E.g. it was absolutely incapable of fixing lldap settings after system upgrade from 25.05 to 25.11. It just prodded around blindly, producing meaningless configs instead learning how the module works.

NixOS docs work for me, but I tend to just go for the nixpkgs source instead. Manuals document options but not how those are actually plumbed through, nor what remains behind the scenes like all systemd unit settings). Claude can do this too, but it goes quite weird roundabout ways with a lot of weird `find /nix/store` and `nix eval`s to get to it, slow and token-hungry (and not always accurate).

This said, Claude is very helpful at checking logs and providing a picture of what’s going on - saves ton of time this way. Plus it can speed up iterating on changes after it’s fed enough knowledge (but don’t expect it to do things right, that’s still on you). It has breadth of it, but not the depth, and that shows at almost any non-trivial task.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#55

Post by DHolzer »

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 sufficiently convey how absolutely barbaric everything else feels in comparison. Not having Nix would be like having to work on code without Git — absolutely unacceptable. And it really isn't that much work — you do it once. The next time you set up a new system, without Nix, you'll have to do the full configuration all over again.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#56

Post by hombre_fatal »

drdaeman wrote: post #53
hombre_fatal wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of us use NixOS/nix yet haven't read any documentation nor hand-written nix ourself. That's Claude Code's job.

If only. Claude Code has to be actively steered, because while it knows some nixpkgs it surely doesn’t know it enough. E.g. it was absolutely incapable of fixing lldap settings after system upgrade from 25.05 to 25.11. It just prodded around blindly, producing meaningless configs instead learning how the module works. NixOS docs work for me, but I tend to just go for the nixpkgs source instead. Manuals document optio…

You don't have Claude Code git clone nixpkgs and home-manager for local reference?

I feel you on the nix store + nix eval death loop, though it gleans real info. If I weren't on the Claude Max plan I'd probably feel more of the pain. And context is now 1MM tokens which means you're not running out just as it's starting to piece things together, heh.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#57

Post by johnisgood »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #44
edent wrote: post #32

I'd love NixOS more if they had any decent documentation. Everything seems scattered around a dozen forums, a hundred old blog posts, and a thousand issues of "this work on my machine (3 releases ago)".

A lot of us use NixOS/nix yet haven't read any documentation nor hand-written nix ourself. That's Claude Code's job.

I would have never become a power user of Linux were I used LLM to do the installation of Gentoo once upon a time. :( So do you guys not know much about the distro you are using, or how does this work? I honestly thought your comment was sarcasm, but apparently it is not.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#58

Post by schindlabua »

After 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.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#59

Post by dandanua »

fareesh wrote: post #13

doesn't it use up a lot of disk space compared to other distros because of the way everything is set up?

Use nix.optimise.automatic = true in the config and perform nix-collect-garbage if necessary. With this it doesn't take much.

Re: Why I love NixOS

#60

Post by stephen_cagle »

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…

Have you heard of any good projects for running isolated containers in NixOS that are cheaply derived from your own NixOS config? Because that is what I want. I want a computer where I can basically install every non stock app in its own little world, where it thinks "huh, that is interesting, I seem to be the only app installed on this system".

Basically, I want to be able to run completely unverified code off of the internet on my local machine, and know that the worst thing it can possibly due is trash its own container.

I feel like NixOS, is one path toward getting to that future.

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