• Andrew@mander.xyz
    1·
    11 hours ago

    NixOS is only bad when you learn to fly, mostly because not enough docs. But when you are all bruised up, it’s a joy through and through.

  • udon@lemmy.world
    43·
    3 days ago

    For everyone who doesn’t have several different systems to maintain, I find the advantages of nixOS to be marginal. Sure, you can argue about atomicity and all, but honestly I don’t remember ever running into a serious problem with debian either. The huge package repo is nice, but I rarely encounter an app I can’t get through apt, flatpak, or as an appimage.

    At the same time, nix also has various downsides. Documentation sucks. There are two main ways to manage the system, they both pretend to be the better one, and it’s super hard to even get started. That’s not an issue with the technology, but just a lack of priority. Guix is much better on that end (but also comes with the same marginal advantages).

    On the other hand, debian has a stable community, with proper processes, democratic structures etc.

    This is a nice, kind of old presentation from debconf, where people discussed nix and how this could be useful in a debian context as well:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGrcLEweglg

    So, if you FOMO, don’t worry. Debian and other options have this on the radar and have their ways to adapt (even if slowly)

    • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
      13·
      3 days ago

      Personally I’ve found the transition to be much more than marginal. Systems are defined not by the state of the machine itself but by the config describing it which is much more transparent and manageable. Non-declarative systems are great if you’re just running small services, are changing and experimenting a lot. Or just don’t can’t if your system goes down or bloats over the year. Declarative systems save you whole lot of management headaches especially if you are working with others, or aren’t constantly reviewing your old work.

      • udon@lemmy.world
        42·
        2 days ago

        Except that things change as well in (or rather “around”) declarative systems, and you have to update your config files as well. That’s because the underlying software changes, and it has nothing to do with whether your system is declarative or not. You just need to put in the work to update your configs at a different point in time.

        • thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world
          11·
          2 days ago

          In nix they don’t, since they lock in files based on the commit hash. You don’t have to update unless you want to and you can always roll back to the previous stable state.

  • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    65·
    3 days ago

    Nixos has been extremely easy to get working for most stuff. If you stray off the trail at all, it gets complicated. Possible! But complicated for my little brain.

    • Johanno@feddit.org
      18·
      3 days ago

      Development seems to be a bit of bite in the ass.

      Intellij does have a package but for some reason plugins use often some random binaries and those do not work well with nixos.

      Also getting always the right dependencies for the current project was for me difficult to learn.

      • kautau@lemmy.world
        9·
        3 days ago

        For my dev environment I’ve had great success combining home-manager and their integration with

        https://mise.jdx.dev/

        Sure, it doesn’t quite fit the nix philosophy perfectly, but everything is still in my home.nix file and my home directory, and and I can swap tool versions on the fly and direct IntelliJ to their locations pretty easily

    • SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org
      2·
      3 days ago

      Yeah, a base setup that works is pretty easy. It’s after that where it gets tedious. To me it sounds nice in theory, but I don’t think it’s my cup of tea.

    • expr@programming.dev
      3·
      2 days ago

      Everything has to be compiled on Gentoo, right? So would the many binary nix packages even work?

      • ragas@lemmy.ml
        3·
        2 days ago

        Sure, binary packages always worked on Genoo. Binary packages are the result of compiling.

        By now you can freely mix and match precompiled binary packages and selfcompiled packages on Gentoo.

        • ThePinkUnicorn@lemdro.idEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          As nix is also a source based package manager, you can also just disable the binary caches and have everything compile on machine! I don’t think you would get of the benefits of compiling it for your hardware though due to the sandboxing of the build environment.

      • alecsargent@lemmy.zip
        3·
        3 days ago

        I just read your comment without realizing my keyboard’s autocorrect mistake and was super confused. lmao.

        • Hawke@lemmy.world
          2·
          3 days ago

          I was afraid of that. Glad you figured it out! Maybe I should’ve quoted it…

          Fond memories of Linux From Scratch, here.

          • cenzorrll@lemmy.ca
            3·
            2 days ago

            …fond memories?

            I actually did attempt LFS about 15 years or so ago. I was actually quite proud to reach a usable CLI that I did myself. I promptly reinstalled Ubuntu once I got there because I was in college and needed to write a paper that was due in a few days.

            • Hawke@lemmy.world
              1·
              2 days ago

              Fond memories yes. It taught me so much about how the build process works and how the underpinnings of Linux worked.

  • TarantulaFudge@piefed.zipEnglish
    18·
    3 days ago

    Gentoo is awesome, especially if you are a developer. Every toolchain at your fingertips. Easy full stack debugging!

  • The Shittinator@forum.guncadindex.comEnglish
    10·
    3 days ago

    I keep telling myself that one of these days, surely, I’ll eventually leave my comfy Fedora rpm-ostree setup, try out NixOS, and make the most of its super unique package management.

    Surely.

      • drath@lemmy.world
        5·
        3 days ago

        Damn, it looks like everyone whom I told about this just wants to see me suffer. Alrighty then, see ya in… sometime. The journey sure looks rough, given that my hardware is barely supported by linux, nevermind an experimental OS from the 90s…

        • paequ2@lemmy.todayEnglish
          6·
          3 days ago

          I’ve always liked the idea of running Plan 9. I haven’t had the courage to try it out though.

    • RaccoonBall@lemmy.ca
      4·
      2 days ago

      Gentoo isn’t so bad if you’re good at reading instructions and value control and customization

    • Laser@feddit.org
      2·
      2 days ago

      I actually considered it once. It failed in a VM but I probably tried too much fancy stuff at once (like replacing OpenSSL…)