[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)