NIX OS: the BEST package manager on the MOST SOLID Linux distribution

Wondering is your still using nixOS...?

it's great for testing out new packages and desktop environments without having to blow up your system

Things are emerging to.. Android?

I'm thinking I don't care about what benefits NixOS gives us...because it doesn't matter to users that aren't savvy.

So all the downsides of immutable distros and flatpaks without even getting any of the few advantages?

Jump to Nick's Train...

Do you have some experience with guix?

I looked at it a long time ago and I didn't feel like it was ready. But in theory it is the perfect distro for a developer. And the current version seems nice. I am going to try it out on a secondary machine for a while.

it's always good to have options

This is how I thought Linux worked when someone tried explaining it to me 15 years ago lmao.

I use nix btw

I am already running NixOS on my old laptop and I can recommend it.

It's almost as much as the AUR because the aur has half the packages nix has.

nixos doesn't interoperate well with, for example, suckless programs that you want to patch. there are many other limitations, too. nixos also becomes the focal point for every failure because it tries to play god. I can't use it for anything other than a server because it not only gets very, very hot on my laptop for no reason even after optimizations, but it's too limited and insanely annoying randomly. sorry not sorry.

As a normie who just stumbled upon this video, I can say that I'm unbelievably confused 😂

Jumping on a nix train?
I'm the conductor already. ❄

I notice you used several different editors during the video. Which one do you recommend ?

How come your left eyebrow is almost always raised?

It's like you are constantly thinking and then saying "🤔hmm" with your eyebrow 😆

When 24.05 releases, my journey through the Tuxedo-OS -> Arch -> NixOS pipeline will be complete.
Why are more distros not declarative? It's like comparing M$ Word and Latex... Why are most people in the Linux community still using M$ Word?!

No, you don't get a reproducible system by simply using the NixOS configuration. You have to use Flake to pin down your versions. I was watching on NixOS. Thank you, Nick. 😀

Wait, you can't delete old generations?

honestly no snaps may be a dealbreaker for some; a few select apps distribute snap only. plus, i don't know if one giant file is the best solution? does it let me use multiple files? i would like to be able to use separate files to organise my config

I love Nick's OS

This looks like the next generation of linux system management. And even the config files could be translated and created by a GUI app in the future.

What bothered me over the years using Linux is how easy is to break somenthing, so over time I beacame averse to reinstalls, so I poke less my config files, things, because if I need to reinstall, witch became less offen, I don't need to mess around reinstalling packages and reconfiguring things, so I see the value of nixOS, maybe one day I try on my secondary machines, if is better I may migrate my main machine on the future from Ubuntu LTS.

I've firstly set up nixos with basically no experience in linux (i only knew about the sudo command) in May, and after almost ragequiting started daily driving it in June. one of my best decisions so far. also i later tried arch because well hell yeah system for scratch but as for me nixos solves the same problem while also solving many problems arch Linux has, so i don't think I'll be driving arch anytime soon

"services.IuseArchBTW" LOOOL, i use arh btw

I never write comments, but I couldn't help myself noting how gauche that Stormtrooper painting is.

the way nix works is the way i just assumed every package manager worked. insane in a world with infinite cheap memory, software is still tripping over itself just to save some megabytes on not having differently version marked linked software.

Wait until you learn about home manager, then your mind will be really blown off

This puts Autopilot to shame

Any updates on "Nick's OS" ;-)

Fight me, but NixOS is the best for newbies since with chatgpt is very easy to learn how to modify the config to install a package and the more you need to play around and you just brick your system, which is pretty hard, then you can just rollback. Ubuntu is said to be beginner friendly, but man, that OS caused me so many issues like breaking updates, booting not working etc. and I had to reinstall everything from scratch.

The impression I get from this is that it's super close to being the next big thing

What I think it needs is it's Ubuntu moment.

Debian had been around forever, but wasn't quite user friendly enough for widespread adoption. Ubuntu took what was good about Debian and made it user friendly, and it blew up. I feel like the same thing happened with Arch and Manjaro. Arch had the AUR, which is a totally killer feature, but it's famously a pain to install. Manjaro pulled an Ubuntu and made an OS that had the power of the AUR, but didn't take hours of screwing around in the terminal with the Arch Wiki up on another machine to install, and supplied Pamac which made actually using the AUR seamless and easy, and it also blew up.

Manjaro solved a lot of problems Ubuntu had with limited software accessibility, and Nix feels like it solves a lot of problems Manjaro has when it comes to stability and dependency management, but it's still a little rough around the edges in the user experience. If NixOS (or someone making a fork of NixOS as was the case with the previous two examples) made a nice, functional graphical software manager like Pamac to manage your packages and perhaps even a config program for that User Config file for managing the different generations, I think NixOS would be the next big Desktop Linux distro.

Never really got warm with it, I just found no documentation to certain issues I had.

The ONE thing preventing NixOS from becoming the best distro is the lack of good centralized wiki, something akin to archwiki

This "configuration tool"/file seems like it should be a standard feature? How can it not be? I'm a simple user but I thought this was the way it always worked 😂

Too bad it'll be dead in the water when the crazies in charge finish running off contributors.

ill stick to arch thanks

Its so freaking good.. I never ran linux on my main PC because i value my time. I dont have time for quirky issues and troubleshooting..
But after trying Nix for just a few hours i decided to put it on my main PC.
Their package manager surpasses arches package manager.

It's incorrect. Toxedo doesn't have a variety of disros they preinstall. It's either Ubuntu or their own Tuxedo OS.

"I am jumping on the nix train". There you go, you earn yourself a like

If I was running a computer lab or server farm or supercomputer this would be pretty useful

I've found NixOS to be really great for tinkering. If you screw something up, it's easy to rollback, and if you screw up really bad you can just reboot into a previous, working generation.

There's plenty to learn about NixOS, but I always tell people to learn about nix-collect-garbage so your storage and boot menu don't get too crowded3