[HN Gopher] Setting up my new laptop: Nix style ___________________________________________________________________ Setting up my new laptop: Nix style Author : rc00 Score : 36 points Date : 2022-12-24 18:53 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (bmcgee.ie) (TXT) w3m dump (bmcgee.ie) | Dedime wrote: | I also ran NixOS on my framework for a while. As much as I loved | the idea of Nix, it's also incredibly hard - I work with Linux | day in and day out for work, and finding my way around Nix, | configuring new packages / basic features, etc. just took too | long for me. The biggest upside I found was the incredible | resilience, it was nearly impossible to break my installation. | | I gave up after a short while using Nix and switched to Windows. | It's not perfectly tuned like a minimal Linux install might be, | but all of the hardware features work as expected and it has a | pretty good battery life. | | If someone can find a way to do something like Nix, but simple, | I'll be interested. Even if it's just a on-rails version of Nix. | SkyMarshal wrote: | _> If someone can find a way to do something like Nix, but | simple, I 'll be interested. Even if it's just a on-rails | version of Nix._ | | I doubt it's possible to substantially simplify Nix and still | cover all the use and edge cases it does. Maybe GUIX since it | had the benefit of learning from Nix and uses a more familiar | (for HN anyway) Scheme, but I haven't looked at closely. | | It seems that if Nix/OS works for you, it works really well, | but if there are use/edge cases where it doesn't then it can be | a lot of added effort to wrangle it. | amelius wrote: | > I work with Linux day in and day out for work, and finding my | way around Nix, configuring new packages / basic features, etc. | just took too long for me. | | That was my experience as well. | | On top of that, getting something like nVidia's latest drivers | working with everything else on Nix seems daunting, so you | become fully reliant on the community (which may be lagging | behind wrt the newest versions). | aseipp wrote: | Nix is basically a programming language, a library ecosystem | and API for packages, and in the case of NixOS, all of that is | used to configure your operating system. So it's not a small | endeavor by any means, no. I think explaining it more like this | reflects the actual scope and sets expectations much better | than "package manager" or whatever does. Nobody expects to have | to learn an API to customize a package... | | I don't think what Nix does in its most general strokes can | really be made much simpler, unless you're willing to throw | away a lot of what it does today (be it some of the package | set, some extra features it offers, platform support, | whatever.) The complex things it handles, that inherent | complexity, is where all value really is. And that's where the | huge and vibrant community comes from, because it does so much | for everyone. It isn't easy, though. | | For an on-rails version of Nix, you might enjoy something like | Devbox. I can't personally vouch for it (I just use Nix itself, | but I'm "an expert" with sunk costs), but I like the idea. One | of the cool parts of Nix being "An API" is that you can build | things like this on top: https://www.jetpack.io/devbox/ | picozeta wrote: | > I gave up after a short while using Nix and switched to | Windows. | | Why not an established distribution like Fedora, Arch, Debian | or Ubuntu? | kevincox wrote: | This is cool. I have my own script which is fully automated. | However looking at their ISO building it is much cleaner, maybe I | should refactor to that. | | https://kevincox.ca/2021/05/06/workstation-install-with-nixo... | | I think the really cool thing about NixOS is that once you have | any sort of base system installed it is just one `nixos-rebuild` | away from any other system. This means that once you have your | config the amount of futzing around on a system that isn't set up | the way you like it. | SkyMarshal wrote: | Also, once you have your base install working, then futzing | around is super cheap and almost riskless [1]. You can | completely brick it, discard it, try again, and/or roll back to | your working base system with very little cost in time and | effort. It enables no-cost rapid iterations in your system | config. | | [1]:the only risk is that once in a blue moon, a major version | Nix upgrade will change Nix's database schema, and be | incompatible with prior builds of lower versions, so you can't | roll back to a lower version build after such an update. But | afaik that's only happened a few times in Nix's history, is not | a surprise, and is communicated well in advance. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-24 23:00 UTC)