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I think this is quite a fair commentry (although I quite like the Nix language personally) - as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop. For m

by ris 2y ago

I think this is quite a fair commentry (although I quite like the Nix language personally) - as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop. For me it shines on servers and development environments.

tuananh 2y ago
> as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop that's not every encouraging :)
- ris 2y ago
  Why? It just isn't what draws me to Nix. I've never even really tried NixOS on the desktop TBH.
  - tuananh 2y ago
    nothing. it's just from someone with no experience with nix like me, it feel weird that someone is already deep into Nix but isn't tempted to use it daily.
    - cbrozefsky 2y ago
      You can use it daily, intimately, without using nixos. Using it for dev environments on macos for example, and servers. Did that for years before I installed nixos on my desktop.
    - woile 2y ago
      I've been using nix in a Mac for a year now. Recently I got a new Lenovo machine and first thing I did was install nixos, it's actually much better than I was expecting. You do notice that nix is designed around nixos
    - wpm 2y ago
      Maybe it’s everyone else using it on their daily driver that got it wrong? It’s like doubting Kubernetes because one of the maintainers doesn’t run their desktop in KubeVirt.
      - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
        I think it's more like Microsoft folks running macs; technically valid, but odd optics. Besides, why would you use KubeVirt to run your desktop? Just run it in containers directly.
    - jmartens 2y ago
      What is so interesting about Nix is that it's not one thing. Its not (just) a distro. Its not (just) a package manager. Its not (just) a system manager. Its not (just) a language. Its not (just) a build tool. It is all those things, but specifically, what you want it to be. Yes, that makes it super confusing, but also powerful.
- autra 2y ago
  To counterpoint this, I'm an happy nixos desktop user. It's not perfect, but still vastly better than a non declarative distro for my taste.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Seconded. I switched to NixOS a year ago after an apt install broke my system one too many times, and so far I've been very very happy with it. I've broken things, but being able to roll back to an exact duplicate of the previous state has been a lifesaver. I can't imagine wanting to go back to repairing broken apt installs.
    - einsteinx2 2y ago
      This is very curious to me as someone who has used Debian based distros almost exclusively for essentially 20+ years (earlier on was mostly Ubuntu, now just vanilla Debian ever since the whole Snap situation) on all of my servers, VMs, containers, and various desktops. To my memory I’ve never had to fix a system due to a broken apt install, certainly not enough times to be so frustrated as to move to another distribution. On top of that, nowadays I have things configured so a new BTRFS snapshot is created on any apt install/upgrade commands so I can just rollback to the previous snapshot if I did run into any issues, which I haven’t ever needed to do. Though that seems to solve the same issue that rolling back in nix does? I absolutely believe you’ve had this problem, but I’m struggling to understand the issue you’re describing. How exactly is an apt install breaking your whole system? I don’t even really understand how an apt install could break an entire system rather than just failing to install the package. Did you mean to say dist-upgrade or something? Are you using Debian or a downstream distribution? If Debian, are you running Sid or is this happening on unstable/stable? I’m just really curious about this situation.
  - sshine 2y ago
    Wholeheartedly agree. NixOS gave me back my desire to customise my Linux again. I’ve run Linux since 1997; I’ve run a lot of distros. Having to reconfigure my Linux on every hardware reset (1-2 years apart) just exhausted me to a point where I ran GNOME on Ubuntu so I wouldn’t waste time on one-off stuff. My .emacs and .vimrc shrunk to 10% so I could reproduce them from memory if I had to. With NixOS, installing a new machine and having it work exactly like all my machines is minutes of work. I’ll never lose my hyper-customised setup again. Running something like Arch or Artix again feels very much like losing my “save” button.
- pxc 2y ago
  It mostly goes the other way, I think. The community surveys haven't asked about NixOS desktop usage in particular. Still, I'm certain that a large majority of contributors are running NixOS on their desktops/laptops/workstations. That said there are prolific and longstanding contributors who focus on non-NixOS and even non-Linux platforms, and corporate users are likely to be running Nix on macOS or Ubuntu (under WSL). It's not surprising that some users who don't use NixOS on laptops or desktops have still become Nixpkgs contributors or maintainers, imo.
aidenn0 2y ago
As a counterpoint, I'm rather the opposite of you: 1. I use Nix primarily on the desktop (2 laptops, 2 workstations), though I also use it on one server. I don't think I could ever go back to any other Linux distro for my daily-driver. Things "just work" to a degree that they never have for me on e.g. Ubuntu. 2. I quite despise the Nix language; this is not to say that I think it's particularly bad (or good) as a language, just that nearly every single degree-of-freedom in language design that is largely about personal taste takes the opposite choice to what I would prefer 3. I find setting up development environments with it to be very hit-or-miss, to the point where I have in some cases fallen back on what I would do without nix, and used nix-ld to fill in the gaps.

by ris 2y ago

tuananh 2y ago

> as a nixpkgs developer even I don't use NixOS on the desktop that's not every encouraging :)

ris 2y ago
Why? It just isn't what draws me to Nix. I've never even really tried NixOS on the desktop TBH.
- tuananh 2y ago
  nothing. it's just from someone with no experience with nix like me, it feel weird that someone is already deep into Nix but isn't tempted to use it daily.
  - cbrozefsky 2y ago
    You can use it daily, intimately, without using nixos. Using it for dev environments on macos for example, and servers. Did that for years before I installed nixos on my desktop.
  - woile 2y ago
    I've been using nix in a Mac for a year now. Recently I got a new Lenovo machine and first thing I did was install nixos, it's actually much better than I was expecting. You do notice that nix is designed around nixos
  - wpm 2y ago
    Maybe it’s everyone else using it on their daily driver that got it wrong? It’s like doubting Kubernetes because one of the maintainers doesn’t run their desktop in KubeVirt.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
      I think it's more like Microsoft folks running macs; technically valid, but odd optics. Besides, why would you use KubeVirt to run your desktop? Just run it in containers directly.
  - jmartens 2y ago
    What is so interesting about Nix is that it's not one thing. Its not (just) a distro. Its not (just) a package manager. Its not (just) a system manager. Its not (just) a language. Its not (just) a build tool. It is all those things, but specifically, what you want it to be. Yes, that makes it super confusing, but also powerful.
autra 2y ago
To counterpoint this, I'm an happy nixos desktop user. It's not perfect, but still vastly better than a non declarative distro for my taste.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Seconded. I switched to NixOS a year ago after an apt install broke my system one too many times, and so far I've been very very happy with it. I've broken things, but being able to roll back to an exact duplicate of the previous state has been a lifesaver. I can't imagine wanting to go back to repairing broken apt installs.
  - einsteinx2 2y ago
    This is very curious to me as someone who has used Debian based distros almost exclusively for essentially 20+ years (earlier on was mostly Ubuntu, now just vanilla Debian ever since the whole Snap situation) on all of my servers, VMs, containers, and various desktops. To my memory I’ve never had to fix a system due to a broken apt install, certainly not enough times to be so frustrated as to move to another distribution. On top of that, nowadays I have things configured so a new BTRFS snapshot is created on any apt install/upgrade commands so I can just rollback to the previous snapshot if I did run into any issues, which I haven’t ever needed to do. Though that seems to solve the same issue that rolling back in nix does? I absolutely believe you’ve had this problem, but I’m struggling to understand the issue you’re describing. How exactly is an apt install breaking your whole system? I don’t even really understand how an apt install could break an entire system rather than just failing to install the package. Did you mean to say dist-upgrade or something? Are you using Debian or a downstream distribution? If Debian, are you running Sid or is this happening on unstable/stable? I’m just really curious about this situation.
- sshine 2y ago
  Wholeheartedly agree. NixOS gave me back my desire to customise my Linux again. I’ve run Linux since 1997; I’ve run a lot of distros. Having to reconfigure my Linux on every hardware reset (1-2 years apart) just exhausted me to a point where I ran GNOME on Ubuntu so I wouldn’t waste time on one-off stuff. My .emacs and .vimrc shrunk to 10% so I could reproduce them from memory if I had to. With NixOS, installing a new machine and having it work exactly like all my machines is minutes of work. I’ll never lose my hyper-customised setup again. Running something like Arch or Artix again feels very much like losing my “save” button.
pxc 2y ago
It mostly goes the other way, I think. The community surveys haven't asked about NixOS desktop usage in particular. Still, I'm certain that a large majority of contributors are running NixOS on their desktops/laptops/workstations. That said there are prolific and longstanding contributors who focus on non-NixOS and even non-Linux platforms, and corporate users are likely to be running Nix on macOS or Ubuntu (under WSL). It's not surprising that some users who don't use NixOS on laptops or desktops have still become Nixpkgs contributors or maintainers, imo.

aidenn0 2y ago

As a counterpoint, I'm rather the opposite of you: 1. I use Nix primarily on the desktop (2 laptops, 2 workstations), though I also use it on one server. I don't think I could ever go back to any other Linux distro for my daily-driver. Things "just work" to a degree that they never have for me on e.g. Ubuntu. 2. I quite despise the Nix language; this is not to say that I think it's particularly bad (or good) as a language, just that nearly every single degree-of-freedom in language design that is largely about personal taste takes the opposite choice to what I would prefer 3. I find setting up development environments with it to be very hit-or-miss, to the point where I have in some cases fallen back on what I would do without nix, and used nix-ld to fill in the gaps.