4 ms·
I agree that NixOS (and Nix) is difficult to learn and the documentation is generally poor, which I realise is what you’re getting at in your comment, But I do
by jamespwilliams 3y ago
I agree that NixOS (and Nix) is difficult to learn and the documentation is generally poor, which I realise is what you’re getting at in your comment,
But I do think we should keep in mind what an incredible project NixOS is. NixOS isn’t just some other Linux distro, repeating pretty much what every distro has done for 40 years. It’s a complete rethink of how a Linux distribution and package manager should work, from first principles, in a way that I don’t think has ever been done before. That’s an incredibly bold thing to do. That alone, as a research project, would be an impressive achievement. But it hasn’t just ended up as some researcher’s PhD thesis. It works in the real world, and it’s built a large community despite its learning curve.
So despite the terrible docs and UX, I have trouble agreeing that it “sucks”!
- Joker_vD 3y agoIt would probably function way smoother if it didn't have to be built on top of Linux. But then nobody would use it, of course.
- vacuity 3y agoThe dystopian future of OS dev: Linux, Linux, Linux I get that backwards compatibility is really important, but still. Gotta be POSIX compatible at least or else next to no one is going to use it as a daily driver. For example: > Coming up with a custom shell language was fun, but ultimately does not solve any real problems for us. > Having a POSIX compliant shell would allow us to, well, run POSIX shell scripts. (This currently requires installing a 3rd party shell.) https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/issues/6847 https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/issues/6847 Where's some variety? I hope to get into the field myself eventually, so maybe I should take it upon myself to create interesting things that might be useful.
- jm4 3y agoOh, I agree. It's why I put up with NixOS. I love what I can accomplish with it. It's a tool for making your own distro. It basically makes the impossible possible. What I'd like to see now is to make the difficult things easy.
- pkulak 3y agoThe new installer is pretty great. My son’s desktop got hosed recently from ignoring updates and getting too far behind, so I used the visual Nix installer to put a Gnome desktop on there for him. He installs everything from Flathub anyway, so he hasn’t even noticed. Every once in a while I’ll hop on and update it. Silverblue would work about as well, I’d imagine.
- SkyMarshal 3y ago> It’s a complete rethink of how a Linux distribution and package manager should work, from first principles, in a way that I don’t think has ever been done before. Not just Linux but the OS in general.