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I recently wrote about my experience using NixOS on my VPS [1]; it's truly a very different way of approaching systems administration and Nix is at the heart of
by Jeaye 9y ago
I recently wrote about my experience using NixOS on my VPS [1]; it's truly a very different way of approaching systems administration and Nix is at the heart of it. While I think the Nix expression language has a negative impact on usability, Nix still ends up being a net gain for not only entire OSs, but also reproducible environments for packages on many other OSs.
1: https://blog.jeaye.com/2017/07/30/nixos-revisited/ https://blog.jeaye.com/2017/07/30/nixos-revisited/
- afarrell 9y agoOooh! Thanks for linking this write-up. I've been thinking of playing around with Nix and basically only be able to do it on a VPS. Before I get started though, what things could I consider implicit prerequisites of running Nix? For example: I've never built a Debian or RPM package. Would I be better served gaining some background in OS package management before diving into this?
- Filligree 9y agoMost of what you'd learn playing with other OSs, you'd need to unlrearn to work with Nix. So... nothing much really. Read the Nix Pills series, that'll teach you more than any amount of playing with non-Nix software.
- afarrell 9y agoThanks! https://nixos.org/nixos/nix-pills/ https://nixos.org/nixos/nix-pills/ for others
- jitl 9y agoNo: each package manager had its own strange rules and concepts. I’ve worked with deb packaging, and I wouldn’t say that experience transferred to working on Homebrew or Nix. You might as well start with what you want to use.
- afarrell 9y agoThis is good to know, though I continue to be sad that there isn't a general "design principles of package managers" knowledgebase.