5 ms·

I want to use NixOS so bad Or what Arch has become. But I want to believe

Firehawke 5y ago
Whereas I just left Debian-based distros because I'm hitting that exact problem with backported patches not arriving in any reasonable length of time in many packages. There seems to be a real manpower problem over at Debian in terms of maintainers.
- poteznykrolik 5y ago
  I definitely feel like I'm hearing this about debian and it manifests worry, because I sense if we don't consolidate so many parallel oss volunteer based projects soon, we could lose a lot of valuable work to rot and collapse. but who would even undertake that survey and proposal process. I do wish our line of work would formalize into an international guilds so apprentices help learn to maintain this stuff on their way to becoming "journeymen", somehow.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  The real problem is an application distribution paradigm that relies on unpaid third party maintainers just to get up to date software.
meribold 5y ago
> Or what Arch has become. What has Arch become? I've been using it for 10 years and the only thing I can think of that has changed is the init system.
- trabant00 5y ago
  I was about to ask the same thing. I think I have more than 10 years and haven't noticed any significant change in Arch, it requires no additional work.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  It is still very good for some things like as a desktop OS, has very good Steam/Proton ecosystem, etc. Using Arch as a server can be a headache. Just today I updated a Arch VM running postresql. Postgresql needs to previous version present to do the upgrade. I had actually skipped a version (11 to 13) so Arch no longer had version 11 in the repos and old packages had broken dependencies. I ended up just installing the Nix package manager on the system. I started a shell with Postgres 11 & 12 both present to do one upgrade. Then I used another shell with 12 & 13 to do the final upgrade. It took like 10 minutes vs the hour I had spent trying to rollback packages on Arch.
  - jorams 5y ago
    This is definitely something Nix is very good at, but it's not a problem with Arch. Staying up to date with upstream is basically the point of the distro, so if you're going to postpone an update for a year you should be using something else.
    - pxc 5y ago
      Why do Arch users always do this? > We told you Arch would be bad at this does not refute (or even contradict) > Arch is bad at this The cost of Arch's KISS philosophy is a system that is uniquely brittle among Linux distros in a number of ways, and Arch users are totally unwilling to admit this except in the form of blaming users for having bad experiences.
jegp 5y ago
From personal experience, using NixOS saves me a lot of time compared to Debian based distros. The initial setup is painful, but after that you are in complete control. Don't need to update? Don't! I had desktop sessions running flawlessly for months without any interruptions. Never seen that before on other distros, really.
- therein 5y ago
  Yeah I had a 680+ day uptime on my NixOS workstation until "GPU fell off the bus".
bubblethink 5y ago
>I want to use NixOS so bad ... But I want to believe It's an operating system, not a disney movie. Not sure what sort of redemption arc you are waiting for. If you are curious, try it. If not, then don't. What's all this business about believing ?
muixoozie 5y ago
did you just copy a reddit comment?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Whereas I just left Debian-based distros because I'm hitting that exact problem with backported patches not arriving in any reasonable length of time in many packages. There seems to be a real manpower problem over at Debian in terms of maintainers.

poteznykrolik 5y ago
I definitely feel like I'm hearing this about debian and it manifests worry, because I sense if we don't consolidate so many parallel oss volunteer based projects soon, we could lose a lot of valuable work to rot and collapse. but who would even undertake that survey and proposal process. I do wish our line of work would formalize into an international guilds so apprentices help learn to maintain this stuff on their way to becoming "journeymen", somehow.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
The real problem is an application distribution paradigm that relies on unpaid third party maintainers just to get up to date software.

meribold 5y ago

> Or what Arch has become. What has Arch become? I've been using it for 10 years and the only thing I can think of that has changed is the init system.

trabant00 5y ago
I was about to ask the same thing. I think I have more than 10 years and haven't noticed any significant change in Arch, it requires no additional work.
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
It is still very good for some things like as a desktop OS, has very good Steam/Proton ecosystem, etc. Using Arch as a server can be a headache. Just today I updated a Arch VM running postresql. Postgresql needs to previous version present to do the upgrade. I had actually skipped a version (11 to 13) so Arch no longer had version 11 in the repos and old packages had broken dependencies. I ended up just installing the Nix package manager on the system. I started a shell with Postgres 11 & 12 both present to do one upgrade. Then I used another shell with 12 & 13 to do the final upgrade. It took like 10 minutes vs the hour I had spent trying to rollback packages on Arch.
- jorams 5y ago
  This is definitely something Nix is very good at, but it's not a problem with Arch. Staying up to date with upstream is basically the point of the distro, so if you're going to postpone an update for a year you should be using something else.
  - pxc 5y ago
    Why do Arch users always do this? > We told you Arch would be bad at this does not refute (or even contradict) > Arch is bad at this The cost of Arch's KISS philosophy is a system that is uniquely brittle among Linux distros in a number of ways, and Arch users are totally unwilling to admit this except in the form of blaming users for having bad experiences.

jegp 5y ago

From personal experience, using NixOS saves me a lot of time compared to Debian based distros. The initial setup is painful, but after that you are in complete control. Don't need to update? Don't! I had desktop sessions running flawlessly for months without any interruptions. Never seen that before on other distros, really.

therein 5y ago
Yeah I had a 680+ day uptime on my NixOS workstation until "GPU fell off the bus".

bubblethink 5y ago

>I want to use NixOS so bad ... But I want to believe It's an operating system, not a disney movie. Not sure what sort of redemption arc you are waiting for. If you are curious, try it. If not, then don't. What's all this business about believing ?

muixoozie 5y ago

did you just copy a reddit comment?

deleted 5y ago
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