3 ms·

You are right on only one thing: 1 version globally is stupid. Global properties in general are stupid. Have a notion of public vs private dependencies and one

You are right on only one thing: 1 version globally is stupid. Global properties in general are stupid. Have a notion of public vs private dependencies and one gets the right amount of coherence, not too much or too little. Otherwise, hell fucking no. This misconception is causing so many mistakes. Software is an ecosystem; I give 0 shits about individual libraries programs whatever, just that the end composition meets my criteria. The app bundle / flatpak / corse-grained Docker vision of software is plain wrong, and will basically prevent future gains in productivity. Nix and friends get it right: no single version dumbness, everything is installed the same way, be it by the admin or by regular user, and with proper notions of dependencies. Socially, I understand where OP is coming from. The common view that distros are some crusty 90s holdover held hostage by a bunch of neckbeards who don't care about users not like themselves. But distros like NixOS put the user in full control. There's feeling of de-alienation using a NixOS machine that's really hard to convey to those that haven't yet tried it (and gotten over the initial learning curve).

posix_me_less 6y ago
Yeah one version really is an antediluvian limitation. The ideal state of this would be something like this: I can have 100 different versions of a library, stored on disk only once per each version, and any application I install could use the special version it wants as a shared library. Does NixOS provide this capability currently?
- kilburn 6y ago
  Yes. NixOs uses the NiX package manager (that you can install in any other distro too). The NiX package manager installs each version of a package to a directory, the trick being that each version of each package goes to a folder whose name is a hash of all the inputs of the build (files, build parameters, specific build folders of this builds dependencies, etc). As a result, not only can you have different versions of a package: you can even have different builds of the same version (that you built with different build configuration and/or versiona of its dependencies). The concept is sound. The issue is that you need the ability to actually build the application (you need the source) and you probably have to adjust its own build process to get it to work properly with NiX.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Yes, just as the other comment says. To me, Nix is "Noah's trampoline", no-holds-barred mud-wresting all the nasty details of Unix and software as it actually exits, all the way down, into something just every so slightly saner so we can sale over the floodwaters and land on the shore of an actually sane practice of computing. And yes, I would basically want describe in in those terms even if it weren't for your nick and vocabulary :).

posix_me_less 6y ago

Yeah one version really is an antediluvian limitation. The ideal state of this would be something like this: I can have 100 different versions of a library, stored on disk only once per each version, and any application I install could use the special version it wants as a shared library. Does NixOS provide this capability currently?

kilburn 6y ago
Yes. NixOs uses the NiX package manager (that you can install in any other distro too). The NiX package manager installs each version of a package to a directory, the trick being that each version of each package goes to a folder whose name is a hash of all the inputs of the build (files, build parameters, specific build folders of this builds dependencies, etc). As a result, not only can you have different versions of a package: you can even have different builds of the same version (that you built with different build configuration and/or versiona of its dependencies). The concept is sound. The issue is that you need the ability to actually build the application (you need the source) and you probably have to adjust its own build process to get it to work properly with NiX.
Ericson2314 6y ago
Yes, just as the other comment says. To me, Nix is "Noah's trampoline", no-holds-barred mud-wresting all the nasty details of Unix and software as it actually exits, all the way down, into something just every so slightly saner so we can sale over the floodwaters and land on the shore of an actually sane practice of computing. And yes, I would basically want describe in in those terms even if it weren't for your nick and vocabulary :).