Hi everyone!

I saw that NixOS is getting popularity recently. I really have no idea why and how this OS works. Can you guys help me understanding all of this ?

Thanks !

  • Tilted@programming.dev
    5·
    1 year ago

    I used NixOS for a couple of years. My experience is like this:

    1. It is a rolling release (mostly)
    2. You write a declarative configuration for your system, e.g., my config will say I want Neovim with certain plugins, and I can also include my Neovim configuration
    3. It is stable, and when it breaks it is easy to go back
    4. Packages are mostly bleeding edge
      • Tilted@programming.dev
        2·
        1 year ago

        Yes absolutely. It is really great. It is also a source of frustration, e.g., missing configuration options, non-obvious options and so on. Overall it works well.

      • Sr Estegosaurio@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 year ago

        You can even define configurations for different systems/hosts/users from a single place. I’ev atomized my config and I can reuse lots of parts for my different machines. Also my user config is nearly identical (except hardware specific things).

    • Atemu@lemmy.ml
      2·
      1 year ago

      Note that there’s both the rolling unstable channel and a bi-annual stable release channel.

    • priapus@lemmy.one
      2·
      1 year ago

      Important to note that NixOS has both a rolling release and point release version.

    • SirNuke@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      Are you still using it and happy with it? I’ve been increasingly using single purpose dev VMs in a server, and a declarative configuration system would make the process of spinning them up faster and more robust. My current shell script system is clunky, and I’ve been looking at Ansible.

      • Tilted@programming.dev
        1·
        1 year ago

        Not using it anymore. Although I’m thinking about going back to it. The NixOS learning curve is a bit more steep than most other distros.