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Sounds like it, I don't know enough about Nix to know if it addresses the same scope of need that docker does, hopefully someone who is savvy can chime in :)

aseipp 10y ago
It's "production ready" if you're willing to do a lot of work yourself. It has a lot of solid theoretical and practical advantages, if you're willing to do so -- as well as some downsides. Advantages include things like real reproducibility, a "unified language" that can describe everything from your packages to server networks, atomic upgrades and rollbacks. More minor advantages are things like powerful development environments, automatic support for distributed/remote builds for your software/deps, easily supports customized software (it's very easy to patch your kernel and have all kernel dependencies rebuilt automatically, stuff like that etc), and other stuff. It's probably one of the most forkable/customizable distros, just purely due to the way Nix works, and fact everything is in one git repo, making 'wide changes' as easy as a branch. Downsides include the fact that the security story is still ongoing on several fronts (userspace/kernel hardening, quickly shipping userspace vulnerability fixes) and that compiling everything -- when it happens -- can take some time. (I only list these two, but obviously these aren't small problems and IMO are two of the biggest ones). NixOS certainly isn't ready for "ordinary consumers" or anything, even among people who might use Linux regularly. It also just factually isn't going to be to everyone's exact taste, in terms of some design decisions (hence Guix exists, and Guix is great!) But for advanced users and operators, it can certainly be well worth it, and confer some unique and powerful advantages. Note that I'm specifically skirting the question of "does it address all the same things as Docker" (in fact, they aren't even fully competing projects, in many ways) -- because that's a fairly complex question given all the ways people use both projects, and it could fill a blog post (or several) in its own right.
- codezero 10y ago
  Awesome, thanks, this is really helpful.

aseipp 10y ago

It's "production ready" if you're willing to do a lot of work yourself. It has a lot of solid theoretical and practical advantages, if you're willing to do so -- as well as some downsides. Advantages include things like real reproducibility, a "unified language" that can describe everything from your packages to server networks, atomic upgrades and rollbacks. More minor advantages are things like powerful development environments, automatic support for distributed/remote builds for your software/deps, easily supports customized software (it's very easy to patch your kernel and have all kernel dependencies rebuilt automatically, stuff like that etc), and other stuff. It's probably one of the most forkable/customizable distros, just purely due to the way Nix works, and fact everything is in one git repo, making 'wide changes' as easy as a branch. Downsides include the fact that the security story is still ongoing on several fronts (userspace/kernel hardening, quickly shipping userspace vulnerability fixes) and that compiling everything -- when it happens -- can take some time. (I only list these two, but obviously these aren't small problems and IMO are two of the biggest ones). NixOS certainly isn't ready for "ordinary consumers" or anything, even among people who might use Linux regularly. It also just factually isn't going to be to everyone's exact taste, in terms of some design decisions (hence Guix exists, and Guix is great!) But for advanced users and operators, it can certainly be well worth it, and confer some unique and powerful advantages. Note that I'm specifically skirting the question of "does it address all the same things as Docker" (in fact, they aren't even fully competing projects, in many ways) -- because that's a fairly complex question given all the ways people use both projects, and it could fill a blog post (or several) in its own right.

codezero 10y ago
Awesome, thanks, this is really helpful.