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I've been a Nix OS desktop user since about a year. There are plenty of problems with the operating system, and some of the criticism voiced in this post is val

by est31 6y ago

I've been a Nix OS desktop user since about a year. There are plenty of problems with the operating system, and some of the criticism voiced in this post is valid, but a lot of it could be expressed in a better way, and some I don't agree with. E.g. kernel updates requiring updates to various system packages is a legitimate issue of Nix OS. It's because upgrading the kernel also upgrades the kernel headers, and a lot of stuff uses those. I think on other distros they just compile packages with older header versions and there is no problem. This issue is not isolated to kernels though, it's about anything that communicates over a dynamic boundary. E.g. glibc. I fully agree with the system requirements point, and have to add that keeping a system up to date creates a lot of network and hard disk movement compared to other distros. Downloading and deleting multiple gigabytes per week is normal. The documentation point is spot on, it'd be really great if it could be improved. I can't agree with the criticism about the determinism. It seems he parades an obscure bug around. It's not perfect, so? It's way better than the alternatives.

danieldk 6y ago
E.g. kernel updates requiring updates to various system packages is a legitimate issue of Nix OS. It's because upgrading the kernel also upgrades the kernel headers, and a lot of stuff uses those. I think on other distros they just compile packages with older header versions and there is no problem. Linux headers and header updates are also decoupled from kernel packages in NixOS: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel-headers/default.nix https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/os-specifi... If they weren't, picking another kernel version or updating a kernel would virtually replace all packages, since the headers are used by glibc. I fully agree with the system requirements point, and have to add that keeping a system up to date creates a lot of network and hard disk movement compared to other distros. Downloading and deleting multiple gigabytes per week is normal. If you run unstable. I have several servers that run the latest stable release. The updates are usually quite modest. Of course, it can happen that e.g. glibc needs a security fix and everything on top is updated. I can't agree with the criticism about the determinism. It seems he parades an obscure bug around. It's not perfect, so? It's way better than the alternatives. I had trouble following that point. The post first talks about determinism and then links to some issues that people had with fetchers?
- est31 6y ago
  > Linux headers and header updates are also decoupled from kernel packages in NixOS Huh indeed you are right. I just confirmed that commenting out this line in my configuration.nix: boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_latest; Causing a version change of the kernel from 5.9.16 to 5.4.91, only updates very few packages. The list of packages: linux-modules, firmware, linux-modules-shrunk, etc-nixos.conf, kernel-modules, etc, stage-1-init.sh, initrd-linux-5.4.91 Which is quite small. And only 62.81 MiB to download, almost nothing for NixOS. > If you run unstable. Actually I run stable Nix OS (with KDE Plasma as DE). Still there is a lot of download traffic. Those gigabytes I am referring to are from the stable version :). Just ran nix-collect-garbage, got to delete 11 GB in 3348 store paths :p.
  - danieldk 6y ago
    Actually I run stable Nix OS (with KDE Plasma as DE). Still there is a lot of download traffic. Those gigabytes I am referring to are from the stable version :). Just ran nix-collect-garbage, got to delete 11 GB in 3348 store paths :p. Wow, I guess I see less traffic because I run stable on servers.

by est31 6y ago

danieldk 6y ago

E.g. kernel updates requiring updates to various system packages is a legitimate issue of Nix OS. It's because upgrading the kernel also upgrades the kernel headers, and a lot of stuff uses those. I think on other distros they just compile packages with older header versions and there is no problem. Linux headers and header updates are also decoupled from kernel packages in NixOS: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel-headers/default.nix https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/os-specifi... If they weren't, picking another kernel version or updating a kernel would virtually replace all packages, since the headers are used by glibc. I fully agree with the system requirements point, and have to add that keeping a system up to date creates a lot of network and hard disk movement compared to other distros. Downloading and deleting multiple gigabytes per week is normal. If you run unstable. I have several servers that run the latest stable release. The updates are usually quite modest. Of course, it can happen that e.g. glibc needs a security fix and everything on top is updated. I can't agree with the criticism about the determinism. It seems he parades an obscure bug around. It's not perfect, so? It's way better than the alternatives. I had trouble following that point. The post first talks about determinism and then links to some issues that people had with fetchers?

est31 6y ago
> Linux headers and header updates are also decoupled from kernel packages in NixOS Huh indeed you are right. I just confirmed that commenting out this line in my configuration.nix: boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_latest; Causing a version change of the kernel from 5.9.16 to 5.4.91, only updates very few packages. The list of packages: linux-modules, firmware, linux-modules-shrunk, etc-nixos.conf, kernel-modules, etc, stage-1-init.sh, initrd-linux-5.4.91 Which is quite small. And only 62.81 MiB to download, almost nothing for NixOS. > If you run unstable. Actually I run stable Nix OS (with KDE Plasma as DE). Still there is a lot of download traffic. Those gigabytes I am referring to are from the stable version :). Just ran nix-collect-garbage, got to delete 11 GB in 3348 store paths :p.
- danieldk 6y ago
  Actually I run stable Nix OS (with KDE Plasma as DE). Still there is a lot of download traffic. Those gigabytes I am referring to are from the stable version :). Just ran nix-collect-garbage, got to delete 11 GB in 3348 store paths :p. Wow, I guess I see less traffic because I run stable on servers.