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Nix already solved the first problem a while ago, though its adoption is hindered by the fact that it would essentially deprecate the entire infrastructure that

Nix already solved the first problem a while ago, though its adoption is hindered by the fact that it would essentially deprecate the entire infrastructure that actually makes a distribution a distribution, and is therefore unaligned with best interests. This is in spite of widespread claims of wanting standardization.

drostie 12y ago
Nix is just simply amazing, and there IS a distribution (NixOS[1]) which ships it. The big problem is of course keeping packages current. Nix and SmartOS[2] are both really important in my book. Nobody's talking about them as distributions but they both have intense potential to completely change not just server-administration (which is what they solve right now) but having a nice desktop experience. It would look like the Windows desktop experience, where they try to hide C: from you and just give you a set of shared-across-your-applications folders: Documents, Desktop Icons, Pictures. When every application occupies its own universe, then the OS itself behaves just the way that the "window" metaphor suggests; moreover you can start to seamlessly include VMs and get Windows applications living next to OSX ones. The only cost is hard-drive space, but hard drive space can be shared if we can package the software and share packages with the same checksums. Eventually, I hope that people will just assume that an application "comes with" its operating environment. 1. http://nixos.org/ http://nixos.org/ 2. https://smartos.org/ https://smartos.org/
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  My point was concerning the mainstream distributions adopting it. I'm well aware of NixOS.
qznc 12y ago
I never heard Nix addressing the reproducible-problem as Debian does here: https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds/Howto https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds/Howto E.g. various build tools (e.g. gcc) include timestamps in their output

drostie 12y ago

Nix is just simply amazing, and there IS a distribution (NixOS[1]) which ships it. The big problem is of course keeping packages current. Nix and SmartOS[2] are both really important in my book. Nobody's talking about them as distributions but they both have intense potential to completely change not just server-administration (which is what they solve right now) but having a nice desktop experience. It would look like the Windows desktop experience, where they try to hide C: from you and just give you a set of shared-across-your-applications folders: Documents, Desktop Icons, Pictures. When every application occupies its own universe, then the OS itself behaves just the way that the "window" metaphor suggests; moreover you can start to seamlessly include VMs and get Windows applications living next to OSX ones. The only cost is hard-drive space, but hard drive space can be shared if we can package the software and share packages with the same checksums. Eventually, I hope that people will just assume that an application "comes with" its operating environment. 1. http://nixos.org/ http://nixos.org/ 2. https://smartos.org/ https://smartos.org/

vezzy-fnord 12y ago
My point was concerning the mainstream distributions adopting it. I'm well aware of NixOS.

qznc 12y ago

I never heard Nix addressing the reproducible-problem as Debian does here: https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds/Howto https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds/Howto E.g. various build tools (e.g. gcc) include timestamps in their output