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I haven’t used full-on NixOS yet, but I’ve used the Nix package manager quite a lot, and literally all of my forays have been miserable for a variety of differe

I haven’t used full-on NixOS yet, but I’ve used the Nix package manager quite a lot, and literally all of my forays have been miserable for a variety of different reasons. To be clear, I love what Nix aspires to be, but it doesn’t deliver on its promises IMO. As a package author, the Nix language has lots of rough edges, it’s absurdly tedious to figure out how to call various functions (what type of argument does it expect?) because it’s untyped and nixpkgs is poorly documented. There are too many other issues here to unpack. As a consumer of packages, it’s often unclear what I need to do to install anything but the simplest packages. E.g., installing vs code with some plugins (note that this differs between NixOS and other systems). Further, the CLI interfaces are confusing from a UX perspective IMO, and it’s often unclear what I actually need to use Nix well (homemanager? flakes?) the guidance is confusing and contradictory. So I don’t hate Nix, but I do have a lot of constructive criticism.

forgotpwd16 5y ago
>So I don’t hate Nix, but I do have a lot of constructive criticism. Why not write a blog post? Probably some of those issues are known but no one works on them, so a reminder isn't bad. And for those that aren't, maybe someone picks it up and tries to fix it.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  That's not a bad idea. I'll toss that on the queue.
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    Also considering posting your ideas to the Nix forums or possibly github issues, lots of activity there and you’ll probably get some good feedback before publishing. https://discourse.nixos.org/ https://discourse.nixos.org/ https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues
easygenes 5y ago
The UI for Nix has been under significant rework over the last ~3 years, but the new UI isn't ready for primetime yet, so none of it is made prominent now. It's getting there though. You can have a peek here: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/experimental-commands.html https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/experiment...
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  That’s good to know. I hope they really nail it!
easygenes 5y ago
The wiki has pretty good coverage of managing vscode extensions: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Visual_Studio_Code#Managing_extensions https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Visual_Studio_Code#Managing_extensio...
openfuture 5y ago
There's always guix... Using scheme for everything is great, for showcase and recent developments check this video on guix home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5cdtSfTpE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5cdtSfTpE0
- easygenes 5y ago
  Just note Guix is a GNU project so there’s no support at all for anything unfree.
  - SkyMarshal 5y ago
    There’s no official support for non-free but the GUIX community has created a number of channels for non-free packages. I believe this is the main one: https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix More if you google “GUIX nonfree”.
    - cyberbanjo 5y ago
      Yes, but you won't likely find help for NonGNU software in the offical GNU Guix channels, IIRC they have a banner on their libera.chat that says you shouldnt be asking for help with non-free software here.

forgotpwd16 5y ago

>So I don’t hate Nix, but I do have a lot of constructive criticism. Why not write a blog post? Probably some of those issues are known but no one works on them, so a reminder isn't bad. And for those that aren't, maybe someone picks it up and tries to fix it.

throwaway894345 5y ago
That's not a bad idea. I'll toss that on the queue.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  Also considering posting your ideas to the Nix forums or possibly github issues, lots of activity there and you’ll probably get some good feedback before publishing. https://discourse.nixos.org/ https://discourse.nixos.org/ https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues

easygenes 5y ago

The UI for Nix has been under significant rework over the last ~3 years, but the new UI isn't ready for primetime yet, so none of it is made prominent now. It's getting there though. You can have a peek here: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/experimental-commands.html https://nixos.org/manual/nix/unstable/command-ref/experiment...

throwaway894345 5y ago
That’s good to know. I hope they really nail it!

easygenes 5y ago

The wiki has pretty good coverage of managing vscode extensions: https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Visual_Studio_Code#Managing_extensions https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Visual_Studio_Code#Managing_extensio...

openfuture 5y ago

There's always guix... Using scheme for everything is great, for showcase and recent developments check this video on guix home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5cdtSfTpE0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5cdtSfTpE0

easygenes 5y ago
Just note Guix is a GNU project so there’s no support at all for anything unfree.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  There’s no official support for non-free but the GUIX community has created a number of channels for non-free packages. I believe this is the main one: https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix More if you google “GUIX nonfree”.
  - cyberbanjo 5y ago
    Yes, but you won't likely find help for NonGNU software in the offical GNU Guix channels, IIRC they have a banner on their libera.chat that says you shouldnt be asking for help with non-free software here.