21 ms·

SnowflakeOS: Beginner friendly and GUI focused NixOS variant

215 points by tkz1312 2y ago

binkHN 2y ago
The site is bereft of details, but it appears to be related to https://snowfall.org https://snowfall.org, which has a little more detail.
- hyperhopper 2y ago
  How ironic that the post for the beginner friendly OS isn't beginner friendly
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
  I'm a user of Nix for about seven years and finally decided back in March, during the second rehash of $sponsor controversy, that I'll stop investing and move away from the tech as soon as I have a suitable replacement. I've been critical of Nix for a variety of reasons along the way but one of those reasons is how so many people (and consultancies) seem hell-bent to set up their own little fiefdoms within the community. The community is already niche, we certainly didn't need people purposely driving further fragmentation and incompatibility with these frameworks with bad bus factor and NIH designs. I've seen a lot of tribalism and cargo culting around some of the other efforts in this vein, too.
  - esafak 2y ago
    Moving to what?
    - mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
      Unfortunately still TBD. If I didn't have to support MacOS Guix would be somewhat attractive. I've also come around to enjoying systemd and have an Nvidia GPU in one machine, which are both things Guix doesn't wish to support either. If Nix disappeared overnight I'd probably be using chezmoi to fill in somewhat for Home Manager and mise to fill in somewhat for devShells, and some ansible to try to fill the gaps, and fairly bitter about it. I'm philosophically opposed to containers in the dev feedback loop, as I want native installation and performance for my language toolchains and editor and such.
  - jm4 2y ago
    I’ve noticed the same things, but I think it’s a symptom of Nix being so polarizing in the first place. I can’t think of another piece of software I dislike so much but I’m willing to put up with it because it’s just that good. Like I can’t wait for someone to come up with a better version. I suspect I’m not alone, and it causes some people to try to abstract away all the warts and sharp edges with these frameworks. Ultimately, it probably comes down to project leadership. There doesn’t seem to be a clear vision, consensus or anybody who can do some wrangling to get things going in a direction.
    - ilc 2y ago
      People have tried with things like guix and there's a few other Nix spinoffs. The issue is that: Nix/NixOS is here and JUST good enough. So replacing it will be hard. What is come up with has to solve things so much better that the community who has invested in NixOS and others sees enough light that it is worth moving over. That's gonna be rough. Given how hard nix (the language) is to deal with, I won't call it impossible, but... I will say, the successor is more likely to succeed if NixOS totally implodes, and I might go as far as to say... only if it implodes or offers substantial back compatibility so people can migrate.
      - generalizations 2y ago
        As someone who has been vaguely watching the NixOS ecosystem, but never looked closely enough to see what those sharp edges are - is there a writeup somewhere, maybe a blog post or two, that goes over what's so good and bad about Nix?
        pxc 2y ago
        It's not exactly a writeup or review, but Ian Henry's blog series How to Learn Nix captures the surprises, good and bad, that a newbie exploring Nix is likely to encounter. Some of the problems he encounters may be outdated, as Nix and its documentation have both evolved since the start of the series. His experience is also somewhat shaped by his decision to rely solely on the documentation and the software itself for guidance, which he held to for quite a long time-- if you seek help from others earlier on you may get stumped less often. But overall it captures very well what getting to know Nix and its docs is like, including the emotional reactions to sharp edges. https://ianthehenry.com/posts/how-to-learn-nix/ https://ianthehenry.com/posts/how-to-learn-nix/
  - thower34234324 2y ago
    What about GUIX ? I tried using it, but the slow-repos, and weird bugs on my laptop (which needs proprietary blobs) put me off. I very much would prefer using scheme to Nix lang but the eco-system is far smaller.
    - mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
      Yeap, proprietary software and firmware are dealbreakers for me too.
    - justahuman74 2y ago
      Do we just need a compromise-happy downstream of guix, much like ubuntu of debian?
    - brabel 2y ago
      I really like the idea and architecture of GUIX and I find it like a better design overall than Nix... but unfortunately, being under the GNU, support for proprietary firmware and Operating Systems (i.e. Mac and Windows) makes it really hard for most of us who are using those systems and don't really feel like running a VM just to use whatever software. I wish they had a separate spinoff that just made sure their software can run on Windows and MacOS, something like exists for emacs, but I think that the challenges are pretty big as they appear to rely on Linux-only APIs?
      - KingMob 2y ago
        The challenges are more political than technological. They prefer not to compromise their choice to use only Free Software, which is their right, of course. However, I've run into a GUIX person or two who frame it as a technical issue because something like macOS lacks a completely verifiable build chain (i.e., needing to use XCode to bootstrap). This is a factual statement, but not the real reason why support for macos/windows is absent.
        rekado 2y ago
        What is the real reason then? Please enlighten me, because I have been blocked by these technical issues in my past attempts to bring Guix to macOS. Guix is built around glibc and there is no glibc port for macOS. Using XCode for everything is like replacing a bicycle drive train with a steam engine; I guess it's still a vehicle of some sort, but Theseus is still unhappy with his new ship. You can use Guix on macOS with https://superkamiguru.org/projects/msg.html https://superkamiguru.org/projects/msg.html, but it's probably not what people want when they ask for macOS support.
  - bsimpson 2y ago
    I believe Snowflake is one of Jake Hamilton's projects. He's trying to make Nix more approachable through GUI tools etc. Unfortunately, he's also part of the mob that chased the founder out of the Nix project and decided it should be yet another battleground for identity politics. Like you, seeing the community entertain these stupid political fiefdoms makes me want nothing to do with NixOS. However, I might stick with it out of laziness though until SteamOS runs on 3rd party hardware. The Jovian project is a Nix-based SteamOS clone that's been working well on my Legion Go, and I don't want to spend the time back in tinkerland finding something to replace it.
    - ParetoOptimal 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - mongol 2y ago
        Thank you for illustrating the problem with the Nix community so succintly. When someone brings up those words, I know immediately to distance myself from them.
        aktuel 2y ago
        It's more a problem of society in general. Freedom (like power) is a two-edged sword. Some people get drunk on it.
        lynx23 2y ago
        +1
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - darthrupert 2y ago
        If they don't like fascists, why are they against the only serious anti-fascist force on this planet?
  - heisnotanalien 2y ago
    I don't know much about the project but as an outsider it all just seems totally insane! People writing letters with screenshots of actions really? Liking a post becomes the equivalent to going on a political march or something? I can't help wonder if a lot of these problems would be avoided by more collaborative in person/talking and frankly more emotional awareness. It's all cognitive left-brain stuff - where is the emotional centre?
  - AJRF 2y ago
    > I'm a user of Nix for about seven years and finally decided back in March, during the second rehash of $sponsor controversy, that I'll stop investing and move away from the tech as soon as I have a suitable replacement. Same for me. We were exploring the use of it across our company for doing the building part of our containers, but the seeping in of identity politics made me rip the whole initiative up, it's simply too risky as you can see very likely paths towards fragmentation and disruption if you use this tech. Such a shame.
    - KingMob 2y ago
      > seeping in of identity politics made me rip "seeping in of treating everyone decently made me rip" FTFY
      - AJRF 2y ago
        Do you think everyone in the Nix situation was treated decently? That is a very interesting read.
        KingMob 2y ago
        People who violate the social contract to treat everyone decently aren't entitled to its protections. Duh.
        AJRF 2y ago
        oh your being sarcastic in the original post - sorry, I get it now. haha!
- binwang 2y ago
  The site you mentioned seem to just link to a bunch of GitHub repos. Neither site answers the questions new users care about the most, like why should I use this new OS and who are the people behind the project.
aniviacat 2y ago
Is this still being worked on? The most recent commits in the pinned Github repos are two months old. For a project that considers itself "Alpha" and "Not yet ready for daily use" that's a pretty long time of inactivity.
- pxc 2y ago
  Yeah, I think it is still being worked on. It's only got a handful of contributors.
- georgyo 2y ago
  In the non-pinned, non-auto updated repos, I see commits from two weeks ago. Though the main contributors are pretty active with nixpkgs, so a lack of commits here doesn't necessarily mean they aren't working on improving snowflakeos, but working on getting improvements they need implemented upstream.
- Carrok 2y ago
  Sheesh. People have lives. Such an absurdly high standard we place on open source maintainers.
  - _xiaz 2y ago
    In the alpha stage Also, how hard can it be to touch up on docs or some other small parts at least once a week? If you don't have the time for that maybe don't start a new project?
    - Carrok 2y ago
      Maybe they’re moving. Maybe they’re on vacation. Maybe they’re getting married or divorced. Maybe a family member just died. You want weekly doc updates? It’s open source my friend, make a PR or shut the hell up. Thanks for making my point for me. This is an absurd standard. “Don’t start a project uness you can commit to weekly updates for perpetuity.”
      - 2y ago
Shekelphile 2y ago
the words 'beginner friendly' and nixos don't belong anywhere near each other
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  I can't see any reason they couldn't go together. Fully using nix is a trip off the deep end of the learning curve, but there's nothing preventing a beginner using a predefined nixos configuration so long as they stay inside the guiderails. With a bit of care, it should even be possible to let them enable whole add-in .nix files to do things like "check this box to enable proprietary nvidia drivers" (which includes a predefined module that handles that).
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- esjeon 2y ago
  Arch has always been 'beginner friendly' according to Arch users, so why can't Nix? /s But, yeah, Nix can be really nasty to troubleshoot because of the lack of information. The Nix documentation is still PITA, and the much of usual Linux guides (which are everywhere on the internet) won't apply to Nix systems. You have to learn a lot. If what you want is a simple system with a web browser and some games, this should mostly work, but Fedora Silverblue would provide much more integrated and solid DE for that purpose. Being image-based release-based distro, it does offer pretty decent UX. Nix is rolling release, and everything is scattered just like Arch.
  - thower34234324 2y ago
    In fairness, nixos is way easier to setup than arch; it also has a stable channel. The sharp bits only come to bite when you want to touch nix-lang (eg. write a flake; create a new package etc.).
    - darthrupert 2y ago
      Yeah this is accurate. I've installed arch several times over the last decade and can mostly do it by heart without consulting the docs... but the amount of possible choices is just crazy and keeps going up. Also, things like disk encryption is easy to get wrong, leading to another boot from the usb/mount everything/fix loop. Nix has a graphical installer, which makes most of these choices for you. Different projects have added similar installers on top of Arch too, making its indtallation as easy. And in actual use Arch is much simpler.
colordrops 2y ago
This seems great, and I think would be an amazing distribution, but it doesn't seem that much visible progress has been made in a long while. If there is indeed progress happening behind the scenes, it would be much better if the devs did this in a more visible fashion, and did some evangelizing to attract more contributors and traction.
websap 2y ago
[flagged]
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  Nix is the Latin word for snow, hence its logo, and so a friendlier version/wrapper calling itself something snow-based in English seems very appropriate.
- g15jv2dp 2y ago
  It's a very common word. Why should one company be allowed to appropriate it?
  - badlibrarian 2y ago
    The dozen entries at the US trademark office may offer guidance.
    - DaSHacka 2y ago
      Ironically, the mere fact alone that there are so many different entries for one word offers its own form of guidance.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      My non-lawyer understanding is that trademarks are pretty narrowly scoped; a database company and a Linux distro seem unlikely to be confused. So this is an excellent point, but maybe not the way you meant.
      - badlibrarian 2y ago
        Trademarks are monitored by prepaid, cocksure corporate attorneys who generate expensive-to-respond-to paper ultimately subject to the whims of judges and juries. It's often best to avoid a crowded space. Coconut and Swimwear/pajama vendors? Sure. Multi-billion dollar SaaS that hosts conferences? Maybe don't give them a reason to notice you.
    - 2y ago
senectus1 2y ago
[flagged]
- jm4 2y ago
  What’s wrong with it? It’s really a good description of what it is and Nix users immediately recognize the association. It’s a great name if you are trying to attract Nix people.
  - pxc 2y ago
    As I'm sure you know, 'snowflake' has become a pejorative. But in the end I agree with you: that sarcastic usage is a recent and unimportant fad. Words have multiple connotations and those connotations are often context bound. And the intricacy and uniqueness of actual, literal, snowflakes are beautiful and interesting.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
wejick 2y ago
I have zero experience with nix, but I understood it has good build tool that many people use. But on what way nix is immutable I never know, anyone kind enough to explain ?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- somnic 2y ago
  For the vast majority of files, whether those are executables, config files, or libraries, nix doesn't just put them in standard locations for Linux systems, but instead puts them in /nix/store/ with a directory derived from a hash of all its inputs and dependencies. For example, I have mpv in the nix store at /nix/store/08a907bw4csdc44408a992lnc9v2802c-mpv-0.38.0 and this has the default config, the binaries, completions, libraries, etc. Since the directory is titled based on the hash of the various inputs that go into building the package, when I run an upgrade it's not going to overwrite the old version of mpv, but instead it's going to put the new version in the nix store as well, at a different directory. Until you collect garbage, to clear out the old versions of things you're not using any more, nothing is deleted. So while you can add and delete entries to the nix store, each entry itself is read-only once it's been built, and thus immutable.
xarope 2y ago
When I tried nix, I had the most utility from doing a nix-shell -p to get different envs for trying out different versions of apps/environments for dev work. But for a full system, given universal blue and other variants (e.g. bazzite seems to be having a lot of success on the steam deck), does nix still make sense?
- zxexz 2y ago
  IME, with flakes, yes. Fork nixpkgs and remove what you’re not using, manually cherry pick what you want. That’s not advice I’ve heard anyone give before, but it’s so nice to just have a a distro that is yours, and everything has a purpose. Not advice, just something that works for me on my personal machines.
- rgoulter 2y ago
  > for a full system ... does nix still make sense? In many ways, Nix is often "second best at everything". -- Since Nix can be difficult to deal with, it may often be a better choice to use some other tool for any particular use case. e.g. maybe using asdf is a better way to fetch tools (compared to nix-shell), or docker-compose is a simple way of running project-specific services locally (compared to devenv), or fedora silverblue is a simple way of running an immutable OS (compared to NixOS). I'd like to think that the benefits from buying into Nix allow easily getting the advantages. e.g. Nix is a more expressive way to build a Docker image or a VM compared to using a Dockerfile or Packer. For system wide configuration, NixOS allows system-wide configuration declared from a single starting point (possibly composed of several modules), and has those immutable OS benefits like trivial rollbacks.
- rcarmo 2y ago
  I use both now. I find Nix more useful for server environments (and sandboxes). For interactive use, Bluefin/Bazzite are nicer since they tend to cater to their own happy path.
- tkz1312 2y ago
  nixos is unmatched as a server OS, and a lifestyle choice as a desktop distro
FounderBurr 2y ago
I’m sure the flake/snow/water euphamisms are very clever but any ideas what this actually is or does?
- 1propionyl 2y ago
  Presumably it comes from the aphorism "every snowflake is unique", which ties into Nix flakes as being uniquely identifiable units of distributed software.
- sweeter 2y ago
  Its a Nixos based Linux distribution where the Nix config and Nix flake is written for you and configured using a GUI. It attempts to bring the benefits of Nix to people who don't care to learn the insanity that the Nix language is (I say this as a full-time nixos user) a Nix Flake is basically just a file to pin packages against a specific version (ie go.mod cargo.lock etc...) you then write a config that defines your system state and packages that you want to be available.
  - drdaeman 2y ago
    > learn the insanity that the Nix language is What's wrong with it? I'm not fond of the standard library (esp. the mkOverride and its friends), but the language itself feels fine. (Or am I just too used to it?) Personally, I would've preferred statically-typed language with proper GADTs, but Nix is far from what I'd call "insanity". Malbodge is insanity, JavaScript is a mess (mainly because of its birth defects), Nix is... not a dream language, has a few odd bits that one needs to get used to, but feels quite okay.
    - pasc1878 2y ago
      I understand Nix the language if it is all in one file. But try to call one file from another - it is confusing - the parameters are not explicit like a function call - they suddenly appear - adding more arguments is odd. Modules are not simple imports they add options and config to "help" you. I do wish they had used a well documented language with some form of modules rather than invent their own idiosyncratic one.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
megaloblasto 2y ago
I think Snowflake is an awesome project and addresses a lot of the complaints that newcomers have about NixOS. However, I don't personally use it. I've used NixOS to build an OS that is exactly what I want, and I can easily reproduce it on any machine and seamlessly run any of my projects on any of my devices. It has completely solved dependency hell for me. I don't exactly understand the complaints that Nix is hard to use. So is the C programming language. So is advanced mathematics. These things aren't meant for everyone to use. They are specific tools that solve specific problems and they do it well. Personally I think Nix should be a lot smaller. I think it should be a small set of tools that allows you to build reproducible systems and avoid dependency hell, and not too much more then that. Everything else should be up to the user. If you don't see the use, then there are so many other wonderful Linux distributions that will probably suit you better. I don't mean to be too harsh, I just think Nix is one of the most incredible pieces of software I've ever used, and I get tired of the hate.
- imiric 2y ago
  > I've used NixOS to build an OS that is exactly what I want, and I can easily reproduce it on any machine and seamlessly run any of my projects on any of my devices. That's great, but you've already passed the steep learning curve, gotten familiar with all the tooling and concepts, and know how to troubleshoot things when they go wrong. For many new users of Nix, these are major hurdles for adoption. The core principles of Nix are great: reproducibility, isolation, ability to revert to a previous state, etc. The problem is the UI to achieve all of that. I haven't used SnowflakeOS, and it's the first time I'm hearing about it, but if it can have the same benefits of NixOS while making the UI friendlier for new users, then it's a huge win in my book. I think that all operating systems should have these features, whether Nix itself is the one to deliver them or not. FWIW, I've used Nix(OS) for many years, and still can't say that I'm comfortable with it. It always takes me time to research and tinker when it behaves in unexpected ways, or to find out how to do a certain thing with it. This should just not be the case, even though it's partly on me for not sitting down to understand it thoroughly. The thing is that most people, even those technically minded, don't have that kind of patience. So anything developers can do to improve usability can bring these benefits to a larger user base, which is a noteworthy goal.
im3w1l 2y ago
This is a bit of an old video (11months) but it looks sleek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XW3mMmN4VM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XW3mMmN4VM
aktuel 2y ago
Winter is coming.
coretx 2y ago
Start & sell as a charity, cash in as a commercial enterprise. The #1 scam in vogue right now.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  What does "charity" mean outside of the context of christianity?
  - KingMob 2y ago
    Sometimes it means gifting AWS all the profits from your FOSS labor.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    Mismatching translation for non-profit, perhaps.
    - coretx 2y ago
      Tax exempt non-profit is what i meant. It insinuates to exist for public interest, not profit. Usually a foundation.
hakube 2y ago
oh great. Another distribution. I think we need more developments on the Desktop Environments and less on new distros
- slightwinder 2y ago
  To be fair, this is not just another flavor of Debian or fedora, but about a new promising strain, of which so far only a low number of flavors exist. So it might does add some value to the game.
mushufasa 2y ago
Cool! I had a friend using nixos as desktop daily (he also needed for development work at his company) and he ran int osome real usability issues, but which had nothing to do with the gui. For example, we were at a wework, and he could *NOT* connect to the corporate wifi and had to just use the 'guest' access. The corporate network requires a cert and is tied to your wework account id. I could do it on Ubuntu by following instructions. He tried following the same instructions, me even helping him over his shoulder, and it just simply did not work, even after we walked through all the same steps that I had done on ubuntu. We were both on gnome desktops. And using similar devices. So something was wrong with how the OS handled the networking, not related to the GUI or hardware.
- lillecarl 2y ago
  NixOS is very "unopinionated" and really quite shit after installation, there are a lot of things a normal distro would bundle and enable that nixos doesn't. Your colleagues problem is not spending years on his config!
  - gessha 2y ago
    Anecdotal evidence: A lot of the “normal” distros woild have the same problem 5-10 years ago.

215 points by tkz1312 2y ago

The site is bereft of details, but it appears to be related to https://snowfall.org https://snowfall.org, which has a little more detail.

hyperhopper 2y ago
How ironic that the post for the beginner friendly OS isn't beginner friendly
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
I'm a user of Nix for about seven years and finally decided back in March, during the second rehash of $sponsor controversy, that I'll stop investing and move away from the tech as soon as I have a suitable replacement. I've been critical of Nix for a variety of reasons along the way but one of those reasons is how so many people (and consultancies) seem hell-bent to set up their own little fiefdoms within the community. The community is already niche, we certainly didn't need people purposely driving further fragmentation and incompatibility with these frameworks with bad bus factor and NIH designs. I've seen a lot of tribalism and cargo culting around some of the other efforts in this vein, too.
- esafak 2y ago
  Moving to what?
  - mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
    Unfortunately still TBD. If I didn't have to support MacOS Guix would be somewhat attractive. I've also come around to enjoying systemd and have an Nvidia GPU in one machine, which are both things Guix doesn't wish to support either. If Nix disappeared overnight I'd probably be using chezmoi to fill in somewhat for Home Manager and mise to fill in somewhat for devShells, and some ansible to try to fill the gaps, and fairly bitter about it. I'm philosophically opposed to containers in the dev feedback loop, as I want native installation and performance for my language toolchains and editor and such.
- jm4 2y ago
  I’ve noticed the same things, but I think it’s a symptom of Nix being so polarizing in the first place. I can’t think of another piece of software I dislike so much but I’m willing to put up with it because it’s just that good. Like I can’t wait for someone to come up with a better version. I suspect I’m not alone, and it causes some people to try to abstract away all the warts and sharp edges with these frameworks. Ultimately, it probably comes down to project leadership. There doesn’t seem to be a clear vision, consensus or anybody who can do some wrangling to get things going in a direction.
  - ilc 2y ago
    People have tried with things like guix and there's a few other Nix spinoffs. The issue is that: Nix/NixOS is here and JUST good enough. So replacing it will be hard. What is come up with has to solve things so much better that the community who has invested in NixOS and others sees enough light that it is worth moving over. That's gonna be rough. Given how hard nix (the language) is to deal with, I won't call it impossible, but... I will say, the successor is more likely to succeed if NixOS totally implodes, and I might go as far as to say... only if it implodes or offers substantial back compatibility so people can migrate.
    - generalizations 2y ago
      As someone who has been vaguely watching the NixOS ecosystem, but never looked closely enough to see what those sharp edges are - is there a writeup somewhere, maybe a blog post or two, that goes over what's so good and bad about Nix?
      - pxc 2y ago
        It's not exactly a writeup or review, but Ian Henry's blog series How to Learn Nix captures the surprises, good and bad, that a newbie exploring Nix is likely to encounter. Some of the problems he encounters may be outdated, as Nix and its documentation have both evolved since the start of the series. His experience is also somewhat shaped by his decision to rely solely on the documentation and the software itself for guidance, which he held to for quite a long time-- if you seek help from others earlier on you may get stumped less often. But overall it captures very well what getting to know Nix and its docs is like, including the emotional reactions to sharp edges. https://ianthehenry.com/posts/how-to-learn-nix/ https://ianthehenry.com/posts/how-to-learn-nix/
- thower34234324 2y ago
  What about GUIX ? I tried using it, but the slow-repos, and weird bugs on my laptop (which needs proprietary blobs) put me off. I very much would prefer using scheme to Nix lang but the eco-system is far smaller.
  - mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
    Yeap, proprietary software and firmware are dealbreakers for me too.
  - justahuman74 2y ago
    Do we just need a compromise-happy downstream of guix, much like ubuntu of debian?
  - brabel 2y ago
    I really like the idea and architecture of GUIX and I find it like a better design overall than Nix... but unfortunately, being under the GNU, support for proprietary firmware and Operating Systems (i.e. Mac and Windows) makes it really hard for most of us who are using those systems and don't really feel like running a VM just to use whatever software. I wish they had a separate spinoff that just made sure their software can run on Windows and MacOS, something like exists for emacs, but I think that the challenges are pretty big as they appear to rely on Linux-only APIs?
    - KingMob 2y ago
      The challenges are more political than technological. They prefer not to compromise their choice to use only Free Software, which is their right, of course. However, I've run into a GUIX person or two who frame it as a technical issue because something like macOS lacks a completely verifiable build chain (i.e., needing to use XCode to bootstrap). This is a factual statement, but not the real reason why support for macos/windows is absent.
      - rekado 2y ago
        What is the real reason then? Please enlighten me, because I have been blocked by these technical issues in my past attempts to bring Guix to macOS. Guix is built around glibc and there is no glibc port for macOS. Using XCode for everything is like replacing a bicycle drive train with a steam engine; I guess it's still a vehicle of some sort, but Theseus is still unhappy with his new ship. You can use Guix on macOS with https://superkamiguru.org/projects/msg.html https://superkamiguru.org/projects/msg.html, but it's probably not what people want when they ask for macOS support.
- bsimpson 2y ago
  I believe Snowflake is one of Jake Hamilton's projects. He's trying to make Nix more approachable through GUI tools etc. Unfortunately, he's also part of the mob that chased the founder out of the Nix project and decided it should be yet another battleground for identity politics. Like you, seeing the community entertain these stupid political fiefdoms makes me want nothing to do with NixOS. However, I might stick with it out of laziness though until SteamOS runs on 3rd party hardware. The Jovian project is a Nix-based SteamOS clone that's been working well on my Legion Go, and I don't want to spend the time back in tinkerland finding something to replace it.
  - ParetoOptimal 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - mongol 2y ago
      Thank you for illustrating the problem with the Nix community so succintly. When someone brings up those words, I know immediately to distance myself from them.
      - aktuel 2y ago
        It's more a problem of society in general. Freedom (like power) is a two-edged sword. Some people get drunk on it.
      - lynx23 2y ago
        +1
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - darthrupert 2y ago
      If they don't like fascists, why are they against the only serious anti-fascist force on this planet?
- heisnotanalien 2y ago
  I don't know much about the project but as an outsider it all just seems totally insane! People writing letters with screenshots of actions really? Liking a post becomes the equivalent to going on a political march or something? I can't help wonder if a lot of these problems would be avoided by more collaborative in person/talking and frankly more emotional awareness. It's all cognitive left-brain stuff - where is the emotional centre?
- AJRF 2y ago
  > I'm a user of Nix for about seven years and finally decided back in March, during the second rehash of $sponsor controversy, that I'll stop investing and move away from the tech as soon as I have a suitable replacement. Same for me. We were exploring the use of it across our company for doing the building part of our containers, but the seeping in of identity politics made me rip the whole initiative up, it's simply too risky as you can see very likely paths towards fragmentation and disruption if you use this tech. Such a shame.
  - KingMob 2y ago
    > seeping in of identity politics made me rip "seeping in of treating everyone decently made me rip" FTFY
    - AJRF 2y ago
      Do you think everyone in the Nix situation was treated decently? That is a very interesting read.
      - KingMob 2y ago
        People who violate the social contract to treat everyone decently aren't entitled to its protections. Duh.
        AJRF 2y ago
        oh your being sarcastic in the original post - sorry, I get it now. haha!
binwang 2y ago
The site you mentioned seem to just link to a bunch of GitHub repos. Neither site answers the questions new users care about the most, like why should I use this new OS and who are the people behind the project.

aniviacat 2y ago

Is this still being worked on? The most recent commits in the pinned Github repos are two months old. For a project that considers itself "Alpha" and "Not yet ready for daily use" that's a pretty long time of inactivity.

pxc 2y ago
Yeah, I think it is still being worked on. It's only got a handful of contributors.
georgyo 2y ago
In the non-pinned, non-auto updated repos, I see commits from two weeks ago. Though the main contributors are pretty active with nixpkgs, so a lack of commits here doesn't necessarily mean they aren't working on improving snowflakeos, but working on getting improvements they need implemented upstream.
Carrok 2y ago
Sheesh. People have lives. Such an absurdly high standard we place on open source maintainers.
- _xiaz 2y ago
  In the alpha stage Also, how hard can it be to touch up on docs or some other small parts at least once a week? If you don't have the time for that maybe don't start a new project?
  - Carrok 2y ago
    Maybe they’re moving. Maybe they’re on vacation. Maybe they’re getting married or divorced. Maybe a family member just died. You want weekly doc updates? It’s open source my friend, make a PR or shut the hell up. Thanks for making my point for me. This is an absurd standard. “Don’t start a project uness you can commit to weekly updates for perpetuity.”
    - 2y ago

Shekelphile 2y ago

the words 'beginner friendly' and nixos don't belong anywhere near each other

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
I can't see any reason they couldn't go together. Fully using nix is a trip off the deep end of the learning curve, but there's nothing preventing a beginner using a predefined nixos configuration so long as they stay inside the guiderails. With a bit of care, it should even be possible to let them enable whole add-in .nix files to do things like "check this box to enable proprietary nvidia drivers" (which includes a predefined module that handles that).
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esjeon 2y ago
Arch has always been 'beginner friendly' according to Arch users, so why can't Nix? /s But, yeah, Nix can be really nasty to troubleshoot because of the lack of information. The Nix documentation is still PITA, and the much of usual Linux guides (which are everywhere on the internet) won't apply to Nix systems. You have to learn a lot. If what you want is a simple system with a web browser and some games, this should mostly work, but Fedora Silverblue would provide much more integrated and solid DE for that purpose. Being image-based release-based distro, it does offer pretty decent UX. Nix is rolling release, and everything is scattered just like Arch.
- thower34234324 2y ago
  In fairness, nixos is way easier to setup than arch; it also has a stable channel. The sharp bits only come to bite when you want to touch nix-lang (eg. write a flake; create a new package etc.).
  - darthrupert 2y ago
    Yeah this is accurate. I've installed arch several times over the last decade and can mostly do it by heart without consulting the docs... but the amount of possible choices is just crazy and keeps going up. Also, things like disk encryption is easy to get wrong, leading to another boot from the usb/mount everything/fix loop. Nix has a graphical installer, which makes most of these choices for you. Different projects have added similar installers on top of Arch too, making its indtallation as easy. And in actual use Arch is much simpler.

colordrops 2y ago

This seems great, and I think would be an amazing distribution, but it doesn't seem that much visible progress has been made in a long while. If there is indeed progress happening behind the scenes, it would be much better if the devs did this in a more visible fashion, and did some evangelizing to attract more contributors and traction.

websap 2y ago

[flagged]

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
Nix is the Latin word for snow, hence its logo, and so a friendlier version/wrapper calling itself something snow-based in English seems very appropriate.
g15jv2dp 2y ago
It's a very common word. Why should one company be allowed to appropriate it?
- badlibrarian 2y ago
  The dozen entries at the US trademark office may offer guidance.
  - DaSHacka 2y ago
    Ironically, the mere fact alone that there are so many different entries for one word offers its own form of guidance.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    My non-lawyer understanding is that trademarks are pretty narrowly scoped; a database company and a Linux distro seem unlikely to be confused. So this is an excellent point, but maybe not the way you meant.
    - badlibrarian 2y ago
      Trademarks are monitored by prepaid, cocksure corporate attorneys who generate expensive-to-respond-to paper ultimately subject to the whims of judges and juries. It's often best to avoid a crowded space. Coconut and Swimwear/pajama vendors? Sure. Multi-billion dollar SaaS that hosts conferences? Maybe don't give them a reason to notice you.
  - 2y ago

senectus1 2y ago

[flagged]

jm4 2y ago
What’s wrong with it? It’s really a good description of what it is and Nix users immediately recognize the association. It’s a great name if you are trying to attract Nix people.
- pxc 2y ago
  As I'm sure you know, 'snowflake' has become a pejorative. But in the end I agree with you: that sarcastic usage is a recent and unimportant fad. Words have multiple connotations and those connotations are often context bound. And the intricacy and uniqueness of actual, literal, snowflakes are beautiful and interesting.
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wejick 2y ago

I have zero experience with nix, but I understood it has good build tool that many people use. But on what way nix is immutable I never know, anyone kind enough to explain ?

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somnic 2y ago
For the vast majority of files, whether those are executables, config files, or libraries, nix doesn't just put them in standard locations for Linux systems, but instead puts them in /nix/store/ with a directory derived from a hash of all its inputs and dependencies. For example, I have mpv in the nix store at /nix/store/08a907bw4csdc44408a992lnc9v2802c-mpv-0.38.0 and this has the default config, the binaries, completions, libraries, etc. Since the directory is titled based on the hash of the various inputs that go into building the package, when I run an upgrade it's not going to overwrite the old version of mpv, but instead it's going to put the new version in the nix store as well, at a different directory. Until you collect garbage, to clear out the old versions of things you're not using any more, nothing is deleted. So while you can add and delete entries to the nix store, each entry itself is read-only once it's been built, and thus immutable.

xarope 2y ago

When I tried nix, I had the most utility from doing a nix-shell -p to get different envs for trying out different versions of apps/environments for dev work. But for a full system, given universal blue and other variants (e.g. bazzite seems to be having a lot of success on the steam deck), does nix still make sense?

zxexz 2y ago
IME, with flakes, yes. Fork nixpkgs and remove what you’re not using, manually cherry pick what you want. That’s not advice I’ve heard anyone give before, but it’s so nice to just have a a distro that is yours, and everything has a purpose. Not advice, just something that works for me on my personal machines.
rgoulter 2y ago
> for a full system ... does nix still make sense? In many ways, Nix is often "second best at everything". -- Since Nix can be difficult to deal with, it may often be a better choice to use some other tool for any particular use case. e.g. maybe using asdf is a better way to fetch tools (compared to nix-shell), or docker-compose is a simple way of running project-specific services locally (compared to devenv), or fedora silverblue is a simple way of running an immutable OS (compared to NixOS). I'd like to think that the benefits from buying into Nix allow easily getting the advantages. e.g. Nix is a more expressive way to build a Docker image or a VM compared to using a Dockerfile or Packer. For system wide configuration, NixOS allows system-wide configuration declared from a single starting point (possibly composed of several modules), and has those immutable OS benefits like trivial rollbacks.
rcarmo 2y ago
I use both now. I find Nix more useful for server environments (and sandboxes). For interactive use, Bluefin/Bazzite are nicer since they tend to cater to their own happy path.
tkz1312 2y ago
nixos is unmatched as a server OS, and a lifestyle choice as a desktop distro

FounderBurr 2y ago

I’m sure the flake/snow/water euphamisms are very clever but any ideas what this actually is or does?

1propionyl 2y ago
Presumably it comes from the aphorism "every snowflake is unique", which ties into Nix flakes as being uniquely identifiable units of distributed software.
sweeter 2y ago
Its a Nixos based Linux distribution where the Nix config and Nix flake is written for you and configured using a GUI. It attempts to bring the benefits of Nix to people who don't care to learn the insanity that the Nix language is (I say this as a full-time nixos user) a Nix Flake is basically just a file to pin packages against a specific version (ie go.mod cargo.lock etc...) you then write a config that defines your system state and packages that you want to be available.
- drdaeman 2y ago
  > learn the insanity that the Nix language is What's wrong with it? I'm not fond of the standard library (esp. the mkOverride and its friends), but the language itself feels fine. (Or am I just too used to it?) Personally, I would've preferred statically-typed language with proper GADTs, but Nix is far from what I'd call "insanity". Malbodge is insanity, JavaScript is a mess (mainly because of its birth defects), Nix is... not a dream language, has a few odd bits that one needs to get used to, but feels quite okay.
  - pasc1878 2y ago
    I understand Nix the language if it is all in one file. But try to call one file from another - it is confusing - the parameters are not explicit like a function call - they suddenly appear - adding more arguments is odd. Modules are not simple imports they add options and config to "help" you. I do wish they had used a well documented language with some form of modules rather than invent their own idiosyncratic one.

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megaloblasto 2y ago

I think Snowflake is an awesome project and addresses a lot of the complaints that newcomers have about NixOS. However, I don't personally use it. I've used NixOS to build an OS that is exactly what I want, and I can easily reproduce it on any machine and seamlessly run any of my projects on any of my devices. It has completely solved dependency hell for me. I don't exactly understand the complaints that Nix is hard to use. So is the C programming language. So is advanced mathematics. These things aren't meant for everyone to use. They are specific tools that solve specific problems and they do it well. Personally I think Nix should be a lot smaller. I think it should be a small set of tools that allows you to build reproducible systems and avoid dependency hell, and not too much more then that. Everything else should be up to the user. If you don't see the use, then there are so many other wonderful Linux distributions that will probably suit you better. I don't mean to be too harsh, I just think Nix is one of the most incredible pieces of software I've ever used, and I get tired of the hate.

imiric 2y ago
> I've used NixOS to build an OS that is exactly what I want, and I can easily reproduce it on any machine and seamlessly run any of my projects on any of my devices. That's great, but you've already passed the steep learning curve, gotten familiar with all the tooling and concepts, and know how to troubleshoot things when they go wrong. For many new users of Nix, these are major hurdles for adoption. The core principles of Nix are great: reproducibility, isolation, ability to revert to a previous state, etc. The problem is the UI to achieve all of that. I haven't used SnowflakeOS, and it's the first time I'm hearing about it, but if it can have the same benefits of NixOS while making the UI friendlier for new users, then it's a huge win in my book. I think that all operating systems should have these features, whether Nix itself is the one to deliver them or not. FWIW, I've used Nix(OS) for many years, and still can't say that I'm comfortable with it. It always takes me time to research and tinker when it behaves in unexpected ways, or to find out how to do a certain thing with it. This should just not be the case, even though it's partly on me for not sitting down to understand it thoroughly. The thing is that most people, even those technically minded, don't have that kind of patience. So anything developers can do to improve usability can bring these benefits to a larger user base, which is a noteworthy goal.

im3w1l 2y ago

This is a bit of an old video (11months) but it looks sleek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XW3mMmN4VM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XW3mMmN4VM

aktuel 2y ago

Winter is coming.

coretx 2y ago

Start & sell as a charity, cash in as a commercial enterprise. The #1 scam in vogue right now.

darby_nine 2y ago
What does "charity" mean outside of the context of christianity?
- KingMob 2y ago
  Sometimes it means gifting AWS all the profits from your FOSS labor.
- yencabulator 2y ago
  Mismatching translation for non-profit, perhaps.
  - coretx 2y ago
    Tax exempt non-profit is what i meant. It insinuates to exist for public interest, not profit. Usually a foundation.

hakube 2y ago

oh great. Another distribution. I think we need more developments on the Desktop Environments and less on new distros

slightwinder 2y ago
To be fair, this is not just another flavor of Debian or fedora, but about a new promising strain, of which so far only a low number of flavors exist. So it might does add some value to the game.

mushufasa 2y ago

Cool! I had a friend using nixos as desktop daily (he also needed for development work at his company) and he ran int osome real usability issues, but which had nothing to do with the gui. For example, we were at a wework, and he could *NOT* connect to the corporate wifi and had to just use the 'guest' access. The corporate network requires a cert and is tied to your wework account id. I could do it on Ubuntu by following instructions. He tried following the same instructions, me even helping him over his shoulder, and it just simply did not work, even after we walked through all the same steps that I had done on ubuntu. We were both on gnome desktops. And using similar devices. So something was wrong with how the OS handled the networking, not related to the GUI or hardware.

lillecarl 2y ago
NixOS is very "unopinionated" and really quite shit after installation, there are a lot of things a normal distro would bundle and enable that nixos doesn't. Your colleagues problem is not spending years on his config!
- gessha 2y ago
  Anecdotal evidence: A lot of the “normal” distros woild have the same problem 5-10 years ago.