Remember the days when everyone and their pet iguana was raving about Arch Linux? You couldn't escape the
ever-so-subtle "I use Arch BTW" remarks in every Linux forum. Well, move over, Arch, because NixOS is here to steal
your thunder! Nowadays, it seems that you can't browse YouTube or read a blog without stumbling upon someone
extolling the virtues of NixOS and how it is the epitome of computing perfection. But hey, who needs critical
analysis when we can jump on the hype train and declare NixOS as the new Arch? Because that's exactly what's going
on. NixOS has now become the self-proclaimed prodigy that's poised to dethrone Arch Linux as the holy grail of Linux
distributions. The time is calling, my friends! It's time for you – the seasoned Linux enthusiast – to dust off your
keyboard warrior capes and embark on a new crusade. So, grab your Tux plushie (or, your pitchforks if you belong to
the world of devils) and let's embark on an adventure through the enigmatic world of NixOS (and let the memes
commence)!
I’ve been on nix for only 2-3 days so take what I say with a grain of salt. I think it’s pretty useful. Back in Arch/EOS, I always find ways to mess up the system (I switched to Nix because of a failed system update on EOS). On Nix, it’s so easy to roll back and you don’t even need to use the terminal.
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade
There are (afaik) 3 channels you can choose: stable, unstable, and small(?). I’m staying on stable for now. Package manager is slower than pacman, imo, and it’s not as straightforward as Arch. Some programs (like kde connect) need to have service enabled in config.
never had that issue before, as long as they have the same version and config
Then you are very lucky. “It worked on my machine” is a meme for a reason.
wasn’t that possible before with snapshotting (btrfs/lvm)?
I haven’t used snapshotting with those before. I guess the difference is that with nix it is done by the package manager by default, with btrfs/lvm you would have to set that up independently (please correct of this is not the case).
So how useful it is in practice?
How do updates work?
Can it play Crysis?
I’ve been on nix for only 2-3 days so take what I say with a grain of salt. I think it’s pretty useful. Back in Arch/EOS, I always find ways to mess up the system (I switched to Nix because of a failed system update on EOS). On Nix, it’s so easy to roll back and you don’t even need to use the terminal.
There are (afaik) 3 channels you can choose: stable, unstable, and small(?). I’m staying on stable for now. Package manager is slower than pacman, imo, and it’s not as straightforward as Arch. Some programs (like kde connect) need to have service enabled in config.
It can replace the need for docker.
Replit.com uses it for its VM environments. See: https://blog.replit.com/nix
It’s useful for quite a few things in practise:
This video shows off some of the cool things you can do with nix: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6Le0IbPRzOE&feature=share9
You update a programming by specifying the latest version of a program in config and rebuilding.
You update the OS by pointing to the channel you want to use and rebuilding.
You can time travel back to a previous state if anything goes wrong.
I expect so, some people.do use nix for gaming.
never had that issue before, as long as they have the same version and config
I have those on Gentoo sometimes, possibly because I overloaded USE too much, but that’s not something I have to deal with on Debian/Mint.
wasn’t that possible before with snapshotting (btrfs/lvm)?
If it allowed me to avoid systemd, I would be willing to give it a go. Perhaps I will try it in a VM, but it’s not going on any baremetal for now.
Then you are very lucky. “It worked on my machine” is a meme for a reason.
I haven’t used snapshotting with those before. I guess the difference is that with nix it is done by the package manager by default, with btrfs/lvm you would have to set that up independently (please correct of this is not the case).