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Yeah, Nix is a tough tool to learn. It's probably never the right tool to pick for "I just want something that works right now" if you're unfamiliar with it. >

Yeah, Nix is a tough tool to learn. It's probably never the right tool to pick for "I just want something that works right now" if you're unfamiliar with it. > I thought one of the main reason for nixos's existence is reproducibilty NixOS uses "reproducible" to mean "with the same Nix code, you get the same program behaviour". This is more/less what people hope Dockerfiles provide. This is the level of reproducibility you want when you say "it works on my machine" or "it worked last time I tried it". Whereas "reproducible build" aims for bit-for-bit equality for artifacts build on different machines. -- With this, there's a layer of security in that you can verify that code has been built from a particular set of sources. > Finding a config was hard too What search query were you using? Searching "nixos configuration" on https://github.com/search?q=nixos%20configuration&type=repositories https://github.com/search?q=nixos%20configuration&type=repos... Or searching for hyprland specifically, there seem to be many using that https://github.com/search?q=wayland.windowManager.hyprland&type=code https://github.com/search?q=wayland.windowManager.hyprland&t...

amarshall 3y ago
> NixOS uses "reproducible" to mean "with the same Nix code, you get the same program behaviour". Note that ”Nix code” also includes the hashes of all non-Nix sources. One way to think of it is that Nix has reliable build cache invalidation. > This is more/less what people hope Dockerfiles provide. Indeed, but importantly they do not provide input-reproducibility (while Nix does) because, at least, there are no hashes for remote data.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  PSA: you can build OCI images with nix, then they'll be a pure function of their input like we've all wished was the case with Dockerfiles.
  - Smaug123 3y ago
    (And Nix derivations compose, whereas Dockerfiles entirely do not.)
mihalycsaba 3y ago
I don't remember, some of them needed some other tools installed(like flakes whatever it is), I looked for configs, that looked like they don't need a few more hours to learn and to setup some other tools for them to work. I just wanted to take a quick look at hyprland, I imagined I just use an existing config, I never thought it would need hours of research. Later I installed an arch vm and managed to install hyprland with some basic components in less than an hour from the first guide I found. Looks like I misunderstood, what nix was made for. I just want a system I can more or less set up with a simple config file. I saw this os, didn't have time to try it yet, but I thought this is how nix works. https://blendos.co/ https://blendos.co/ For example you just define gnome like this, the nix configs I found looked similar, they just didn't work. >gnome: > enabled: true > style: light > gtk-theme: 'adw-gtk3' > icon-theme: 'Adwaita' > titlebar: > button-placement: 'right' > double-click-action: 'toggle-maximize' > middle-click-action: 'minimize' > right-click-action: 'menu'
- ParetoOptimal 3y ago
  > I just wanted to take a quick look at hyprland, I imagined I just use an existing config, I never thought it would need hours of research. It shouldn't. You'd want a simple flake to start with that has home-manager (for higher chance of finding declarative vest practice configs and modules) and to add small things to that. I imagine you tried grabbing someone's complex config, modifying it, and ran into issues?
  - t0astbread 3y ago
    Flakes will hopefully be that soon but I wouldn't recommend starting with flakes when learning Nix in 2023. They're experimental and you still need to learn most of flake-less Nix (except channels and NIX_PATH) anyways. When I started learning/using NixOS about two years ago I found it useful to start out with just Nixpkgs (i.e. what you get out of the box) and only add libraries when I felt they would help me. My first configs where ugly as hell and full of bad practice but the cool thing about Nix is that it gives you a lot of safety nets to enable experimentation and refactoring.

amarshall 3y ago

> NixOS uses "reproducible" to mean "with the same Nix code, you get the same program behaviour". Note that ”Nix code” also includes the hashes of all non-Nix sources. One way to think of it is that Nix has reliable build cache invalidation. > This is more/less what people hope Dockerfiles provide. Indeed, but importantly they do not provide input-reproducibility (while Nix does) because, at least, there are no hashes for remote data.

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
PSA: you can build OCI images with nix, then they'll be a pure function of their input like we've all wished was the case with Dockerfiles.
- Smaug123 3y ago
  (And Nix derivations compose, whereas Dockerfiles entirely do not.)

mihalycsaba 3y ago

I don't remember, some of them needed some other tools installed(like flakes whatever it is), I looked for configs, that looked like they don't need a few more hours to learn and to setup some other tools for them to work. I just wanted to take a quick look at hyprland, I imagined I just use an existing config, I never thought it would need hours of research. Later I installed an arch vm and managed to install hyprland with some basic components in less than an hour from the first guide I found. Looks like I misunderstood, what nix was made for. I just want a system I can more or less set up with a simple config file. I saw this os, didn't have time to try it yet, but I thought this is how nix works. https://blendos.co/ https://blendos.co/ For example you just define gnome like this, the nix configs I found looked similar, they just didn't work. >gnome: > enabled: true > style: light > gtk-theme: 'adw-gtk3' > icon-theme: 'Adwaita' > titlebar: > button-placement: 'right' > double-click-action: 'toggle-maximize' > middle-click-action: 'minimize' > right-click-action: 'menu'

ParetoOptimal 3y ago
> I just wanted to take a quick look at hyprland, I imagined I just use an existing config, I never thought it would need hours of research. It shouldn't. You'd want a simple flake to start with that has home-manager (for higher chance of finding declarative vest practice configs and modules) and to add small things to that. I imagine you tried grabbing someone's complex config, modifying it, and ran into issues?
- t0astbread 3y ago
  Flakes will hopefully be that soon but I wouldn't recommend starting with flakes when learning Nix in 2023. They're experimental and you still need to learn most of flake-less Nix (except channels and NIX_PATH) anyways. When I started learning/using NixOS about two years ago I found it useful to start out with just Nixpkgs (i.e. what you get out of the box) and only add libraries when I felt they would help me. My first configs where ugly as hell and full of bad practice but the cool thing about Nix is that it gives you a lot of safety nets to enable experimentation and refactoring.