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Point 4 is incredibly under-marketed. Almost all of Nix/NixOS documentation focus on the language-y and build-system-y parts of Nix, and the NixOS modules are u

by SSLy 2y ago

Point 4 is incredibly under-marketed. Almost all of Nix/NixOS documentation focus on the language-y and build-system-y parts of Nix, and the NixOS modules are usually not talked about. Terrible state of docs doesn't help.

pxc 2y ago
Knowing what are the 3 official manuals for the 3 most important projects in the core Nix ecosystem (the manuals for Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS, respectively) that together make up the core of the official docs will save newbies a lot of trouble. > the language-y and build-system-y parts of Nix Language-y manual: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/language/index.html https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/language/index.html Build system-y stuff manual: https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/ https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/ > the NixOS modules Using the NixOS module system in the sense of leveraging existing modules is the main topic of the NixOS manual: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/ https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/ Details about the module system mostly live in this section of it: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/#sec-writing-modules https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/#sec-writing-modules The piece they don't tell you is that as a NixOS user, you generally want to look for a NixOS module that supports your application first. Only if you don't see one should you then directly/manually install a package into, e.g., environment.systemPackages. In other words, search here first: https://search.nixos.org/options https://search.nixos.org/options And search here second: https://search.nixos.org/packages https://search.nixos.org/packages The landing page that ties these reference docs together and also contains a lot more example-centric and tutorial content is nix dot dev, here: https://nix.dev/ https://nix.dev/ Imo nix.dev is a great entrypoint and quickly getting better. In addition to providing a bit of a map to help you navigate the official docs, it includes the best official starting docs on flakes, and links to the highest-quality external tutorial and expository material about Nix. Make a mental note about the 3 big reference manuals, and bookmark nix.dev, and you have everything you need to learn your way around the official docs.

by SSLy 2y ago

pxc 2y ago

Knowing what are the 3 official manuals for the 3 most important projects in the core Nix ecosystem (the manuals for Nix, Nixpkgs, and NixOS, respectively) that together make up the core of the official docs will save newbies a lot of trouble. > the language-y and build-system-y parts of Nix Language-y manual: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/language/index.html https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/language/index.html Build system-y stuff manual: https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/ https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/ > the NixOS modules Using the NixOS module system in the sense of leveraging existing modules is the main topic of the NixOS manual: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/ https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/ Details about the module system mostly live in this section of it: https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/#sec-writing-modules https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/#sec-writing-modules The piece they don't tell you is that as a NixOS user, you generally want to look for a NixOS module that supports your application first. Only if you don't see one should you then directly/manually install a package into, e.g., environment.systemPackages. In other words, search here first: https://search.nixos.org/options https://search.nixos.org/options And search here second: https://search.nixos.org/packages https://search.nixos.org/packages The landing page that ties these reference docs together and also contains a lot more example-centric and tutorial content is nix dot dev, here: https://nix.dev/ https://nix.dev/ Imo nix.dev is a great entrypoint and quickly getting better. In addition to providing a bit of a map to help you navigate the official docs, it includes the best official starting docs on flakes, and links to the highest-quality external tutorial and expository material about Nix. Make a mental note about the 3 big reference manuals, and bookmark nix.dev, and you have everything you need to learn your way around the official docs.