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I really want to switch to NixOS at one point. I’ve had a try about a month ago but having not read much documentation beforehand, it took too much time for me

by _lvbh 2y ago

I really want to switch to NixOS at one point. I’ve had a try about a month ago but having not read much documentation beforehand, it took too much time for me to get everything the way I wanted. Fedora with Hyprland has been working just fine for me so maybe I’ll hold off until things become easier.

ninetyninenine 2y ago
Not super likely this will happen any time soon. In the closed source world profits drive development and ease of use drives profit. In the open source world what drives development is some neck beards obscure opinion on user friendliness. Which likely still involves a command line tool and a config file with an acronym as the config parameter.
- _lvbh 2y ago
  Command line tools are cool for me. I just need better documentation on the behavior of the CLIs and exactly what they do without having to dive into the source code. One reason I’ve held off is because I’m not familiar with C++. Hoping to fix that over the summer
  - ninetyninenine 2y ago
    being cool isn't the key point. The fact that you need better documentation is the problem. Did I ever read a manual or look up docs for MacOS, windows, iOS, or android? No. That's what's missing from open source. Well it's not missing, but it's like the lowest priority such that it takes a looong time for something that's open source to approach this level of user friendliness.
    - shakow 2y ago
      You're comparing a user-facing GUI to a system administration tool. Just like I don't expect Jack from accounting to read a doc to launch Chrome from Gnome, I would expect James from IT to read docs before setting up the Oracle Linux LDAP server or the IIS + SQL Server stack.
      - ninetyninenine 2y ago
        And that's what is stopping NixOS from ever being main stream. It will always occupy this obscure corner of OS's that basically nobody uses.
        shakow 2y ago
        I don't think that NixOS as a main stream OS makes sense. I personally use it because I'm a nerd, but I would not recommend to my sister anymore than RHEL or Oracle Linux. However, to efficiently administrate an heterogeneous server fleet, I have not found better yet.
        ninetyninenine 2y ago
        It does make sense. The key thing with nixos is one config for all OS installations. This makes sense for casual users, and also for mid-tier users and developers who want a really good OS but not the technical baggage that hinders development. Right now NixOS is mostly used by devs who don't mind doubling development time because that's the extra time it takes to learn and deal with Nixos. This makes sense for everybody: An OS with the power of NixOS and ease of use of MacOS or Windows or Ubuntu.
    - pxc 2y ago
      > Did I ever read a manual or look up docs for MacOS, windows, iOS, or android? > No. That's what's missing from open source. Sounds like a you thing. I consult macOS manpages routinely. Having been away from Windows for a long time, I consult MS docs on Windows and PowerShell pretty much every time I touch Windows. Aside from all that... if you're too good to read a manual, you're too good for Nix; do everyone a favor and move on. Nix has lots of real UX issues to fix but trying to onboard or entice users whose expectation is to read nothing and learn nothing would just be a harmful mistake.
bsimpson 2y ago
> things become easier I'm not even sure what that would look like. Nix is such a departure from other Linuxen that I don't think it will magically become easier; I expect you'll always need to understand Nix to use it. Maybe better syntax highlighting etc. would help? I expect it's much easier to learn Nix in the age of LLMs than it would have been before.
- k8svet 2y ago
  There are multiple competent LSP implementation for nix so hopefully that's not the blocker! Nix has rough to pick up, but has a comfort to it once you broach it.
- rav3ndust 2y ago
  i haven't had a chance to have a play with the alpha yet, but there is a project that is working on making nix "easier" for beginners. its called snowflakeOS: https://snowflakeos.org/ https://snowflakeos.org/
  - bsimpson 2y ago
    There was a bunch of recent drama surrounding a woke takeover and/or fork of the Nix ecosystem. Browse /r/NixOS if you want details. I haven't followed it closely and I don't want to misrepresent, but as I understand: - They pushed the founder of the project out of the BDFL role he'd held for 21 years, and - They started a new "governance" process that included evicting people who disagreed with their tack/tact. It was done in the name of "inclusivity," but it sounds like the bar for excluding people they disagreed with was very low. The Snowflake guy (Jake Hamilton) is part of the takeover crew. He's got a fork in-waiting if the takeover of mainline Nix doesn't go the way they want: https://aux.computer/ https://aux.computer/
    - rav3ndust 2y ago
      thanks for the info! i had heard about some drama in nixworld, but hadn't done much reading into it yet. this is a good starting point.
opengears 2y ago
Hyprland installation is a oneliner (if you are not on nvidia) programs.hyprland.enable = true; :D
- _lvbh 2y ago
  I actually don’t like the special treatment of certain programs. Consistency is king. Even on Fedora, I boot into TTY and run Hyprland manually from there or just stay in TTY+tmux.

by _lvbh 2y ago

ninetyninenine 2y ago

Not super likely this will happen any time soon. In the closed source world profits drive development and ease of use drives profit. In the open source world what drives development is some neck beards obscure opinion on user friendliness. Which likely still involves a command line tool and a config file with an acronym as the config parameter.

_lvbh 2y ago
Command line tools are cool for me. I just need better documentation on the behavior of the CLIs and exactly what they do without having to dive into the source code. One reason I’ve held off is because I’m not familiar with C++. Hoping to fix that over the summer
- ninetyninenine 2y ago
  being cool isn't the key point. The fact that you need better documentation is the problem. Did I ever read a manual or look up docs for MacOS, windows, iOS, or android? No. That's what's missing from open source. Well it's not missing, but it's like the lowest priority such that it takes a looong time for something that's open source to approach this level of user friendliness.
  - shakow 2y ago
    You're comparing a user-facing GUI to a system administration tool. Just like I don't expect Jack from accounting to read a doc to launch Chrome from Gnome, I would expect James from IT to read docs before setting up the Oracle Linux LDAP server or the IIS + SQL Server stack.
    - ninetyninenine 2y ago
      And that's what is stopping NixOS from ever being main stream. It will always occupy this obscure corner of OS's that basically nobody uses.
      - shakow 2y ago
        I don't think that NixOS as a main stream OS makes sense. I personally use it because I'm a nerd, but I would not recommend to my sister anymore than RHEL or Oracle Linux. However, to efficiently administrate an heterogeneous server fleet, I have not found better yet.
        ninetyninenine 2y ago
        It does make sense. The key thing with nixos is one config for all OS installations. This makes sense for casual users, and also for mid-tier users and developers who want a really good OS but not the technical baggage that hinders development. Right now NixOS is mostly used by devs who don't mind doubling development time because that's the extra time it takes to learn and deal with Nixos. This makes sense for everybody: An OS with the power of NixOS and ease of use of MacOS or Windows or Ubuntu.
  - pxc 2y ago
    > Did I ever read a manual or look up docs for MacOS, windows, iOS, or android? > No. That's what's missing from open source. Sounds like a you thing. I consult macOS manpages routinely. Having been away from Windows for a long time, I consult MS docs on Windows and PowerShell pretty much every time I touch Windows. Aside from all that... if you're too good to read a manual, you're too good for Nix; do everyone a favor and move on. Nix has lots of real UX issues to fix but trying to onboard or entice users whose expectation is to read nothing and learn nothing would just be a harmful mistake.

bsimpson 2y ago

> things become easier I'm not even sure what that would look like. Nix is such a departure from other Linuxen that I don't think it will magically become easier; I expect you'll always need to understand Nix to use it. Maybe better syntax highlighting etc. would help? I expect it's much easier to learn Nix in the age of LLMs than it would have been before.

k8svet 2y ago
There are multiple competent LSP implementation for nix so hopefully that's not the blocker! Nix has rough to pick up, but has a comfort to it once you broach it.
rav3ndust 2y ago
i haven't had a chance to have a play with the alpha yet, but there is a project that is working on making nix "easier" for beginners. its called snowflakeOS: https://snowflakeos.org/ https://snowflakeos.org/
- bsimpson 2y ago
  There was a bunch of recent drama surrounding a woke takeover and/or fork of the Nix ecosystem. Browse /r/NixOS if you want details. I haven't followed it closely and I don't want to misrepresent, but as I understand: - They pushed the founder of the project out of the BDFL role he'd held for 21 years, and - They started a new "governance" process that included evicting people who disagreed with their tack/tact. It was done in the name of "inclusivity," but it sounds like the bar for excluding people they disagreed with was very low. The Snowflake guy (Jake Hamilton) is part of the takeover crew. He's got a fork in-waiting if the takeover of mainline Nix doesn't go the way they want: https://aux.computer/ https://aux.computer/
  - rav3ndust 2y ago
    thanks for the info! i had heard about some drama in nixworld, but hadn't done much reading into it yet. this is a good starting point.

opengears 2y ago

Hyprland installation is a oneliner (if you are not on nvidia) programs.hyprland.enable = true; :D

_lvbh 2y ago
I actually don’t like the special treatment of certain programs. Consistency is king. Even on Fedora, I boot into TTY and run Hyprland manually from there or just stay in TTY+tmux.