★ Ｌ０ＷｉｇｈWhy everyone is switching to NixOS ?
VeritasThe increasing popularity of NixOS can be attributed to several factors that make it stand out among other Linux distributions. Some of the key reasons why people are switching to NixOS include:
Reproducibility: NixOS allows for reproducible builds and deployments, ensuring that the same code will produce the same output across different environments[1][2].
Easy rollbacks: NixOS has built-in rollbacks, which means that if a configuration change causes the system to be unbootable, it is easy to roll back to a previous working install[1][3].
Nix package manager: NixOS uses the Nix package manager, which simplifies package management and system configuration[1].
Multiple versions of the same package: NixOS allows users to have multiple versions of the same package installed, which can be useful for testing and development purposes[1].
Stability: NixOS is considered a very stable platform compared to other Linux distributions, such as Arch Linux[3].
Declarative configuration: NixOS uses a declarative configuration approach, which offers benefits over the imperative approach used by more traditional operating systems[4].
In addition to these features, the recent introduction of the open-source platform flox has made it easier for developers and enterprises to adopt NixOS. Flox expands on Nix's unique approach to package management and system configuration, providing convenience, collaboration, and control throughout the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) [5]. This has led to an increase in the adoption of NixOS among developers and enterprises.
Overall, NixOS offers a combination of stability, reproducibility, and flexibility that appeals to developers and users who want a reliable and customizable Linux distribution.
Citations:
[1] https://itsfoss.com/why-use-nixos/
[2] https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/07/flox-raises-27m-to-bring-nix-to-more-developers/
[3] https://ramsdenj.com/2017/06/19/switching-to-nixos-from-arch-linux.html
[4] https://www.anthes.is/nixos-pros-cons.html
[5] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/flox-raises-27-million-introduces-140100442.html
Arthur Bessethis comment reads suspiciously like it was written by an LLM (eg ChatGPT). was it? please don't do that!
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] an admin is telling me not to use LLMs. Is this the official stance of this instance? If so, please let me know so I can find another instance and add it to the rules, if not please choose admins that actually enforce the instance rules without making them up.
thanks for clarifying. i'm deleting your generated comment per rule 4 (spamming); if another admin wants to undelete it i would be surprised.
please do not post LLM-authored comments without clearly labeling them as such. imo this is common sense, and doesn't need its own rule, rule 4 is sufficient.
You suck
I don't know whether just using an LLM is a problem. But in your case I would say the fact you used one and didn't indicate you did. If you indicated the answer came from an LLM, then the trust in the answer could be weighted accordingly by each user.
That's my opinion at any rate.
Under the soon to be enacted EU AI laws such a bot would be limited-risk application (interaction with humans), the requirements for a text bot aren't particularly high but also non-negotiable from a best practice POV: Stating front and centre that it's an AI generated post. It's also best practice to fulfil criteria necessary for high-risk systems voluntarily, the more you can fulfil I bet the less hostile people are going to be.
The library of congress has an executive summary of the thing.
(EU sources alas are a bit iffy at the moment there's the commission version and the parliament amendments, haven't seen a consolidated version yet. When will politicians start using proper VCS)
I use an LLM to edit everything I write. Does this mean I have to label everything as LLM-generated? I am the one doing the job, but in the end, I'm just copy-pasting the output from the LLM.
Try not using an LLM to write what you..uh..write.
If OP wanted a response from an LLM, they would have typed their question into an LLM. The least you could do is label it as such.
I use an LLM to edit everything I write. Does this mean I have to label everything as LLM-generated? I am the one doing the job, but in the end, I'm just copy-pasting the output from the LLM.
133arc585I think you should.
Why don't you label your name in every answer, so we can check if you are hallucinating or making things up?
You mean like a username that is listed in the header of every post and comment?
Using an LLM to autocorrect your own words is not the same as copy-pasting an LLM response.
I swear, LLMs are really giving people the You made this...I made this meme a rebirth.
Rule or not, it's pretty lame, look at the size of your post compared to how much info it gives, had you copied a article from some basic linux news stite, it would have given mostly the same output, now think about what linking a page to an article about nixos as a response to op trying to start a conversation about it would look like, rude.
ZambonimanDoes this mean I have to label everything as LLM-generated?
Yes, that would be reasonable imo.
The admins did not remove the comment, a community mod did. Mods can impose further restrictions on their communities on top of instance wide rules (within reason of course), including banning LLMs. Lemmy.ml at least does not have a blanket ban on LLMs, but generally it's expected that, 1, you should not post LLMs excessively, we mainly want to host discussions by humans, 2, you should disclose it's from an LLM and which one it's from, and preferably add to what it says with your own comments or analysis. If it's a mix of LLM and your own writing, say so at the start of the comment, but if the community directly disallows LLMs then you shouldn't post it there at all.
So basically promote software for free? No thanks, bye. I won't attribute everything I write to an LLM.
operatorNice summary, appreciate the links. Sounds like Bing AI thought ;)
This is clearly a chatgpt post that you made references for
everyone
Now that's what I'd call a stretch...
I'll edit. That was clearly a stretch
Indeed, why would I switch, already have been running NixOS for 10+ years.
I used NixOS for a couple of years. My experience is like this:
The configuration stuff seems great. I guess it reduce the struggle of porting a full config from one pc to another right ?
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.
SirNukeAre 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.
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.
What are you using instead?
I have been using Arch and Fedora. Considering Fedora Silverblue too. Everything is working well, so not in a rush to distro hop.
Important to note that NixOS has both a rolling release and point release version.
Because it’s the latest Cool Nerd Thing™ like Arch before it, and Gentoo before that. Most of the people raving about it probably don’t have much use for its features.
___hulkSolution without a problem. A cool solution but yeah.
I don't think that's accurate, personally.
Declarative orchestration systems have been around for years and have a very real use case when needing to stand up servers in a replicable way. Nix is applying that approach at the system level.
I'm not entirely sold on wanting to put that level of effort into a personal desktop, but I don't think it's at all fair to say that it's not addressing real problems.
Good point, I rescend my snark.
datendefektGlancing over the website, I thought it's an immutable OS, like Fedora Silverblue. I could imagine that it might be cool to use with Ansible and stuff. But for an average user? I can't really see the advantages in respect to the work you have to put in.
vifonQuite the opposite: Ansible gets redundant on NixOS, as Nix itself serves as the declarative layer. The OS isn't immutable, not in the Fedora Silverblue meaning. A better word would be "transactional".
NixOS in a way is a system with a version control system and a configuration management system built-in. Read it as: "What if my Debian had Git and Ansible included as its integral part?"
quantenzitroneNixOS is not immutable in the way Fodora Silverblue is, and way more declarative and reproducible than Ansible.
But yeah it is not something you "need". Other distros work too, but NixOS is way more fun.
count0For those who like a video format, I found this introduction quite informative.
NIX OS: the BEST package manager on the MOST SOLID Linux distribution
Clairvoidancei was zzz until i heard having the ability to have different versions of packages installed at the same time without having the flatpak issue of having to have duplicates of the same package
Having the option to have multiple versions of a dependency without needing to have duplicates of the same version alá flatpak seems like it should've been a no-brainer on any linux distro.
With that said I'm very comfortable with my current system, so definitely not until I get majorly fucked by my life-choices
Definitely sounds like a competent player in comparison to most distros though.
And I feel like the terminal isn't as big a barrier as everyone makes it out to be (part of why I say that is because I think the entire concept of "beginner friendly distros" only makes the terminal seem more impenetrable through that wording)
All-in-one config is definitely something I would've hoped Arch had as well, and as a bonus I would love a system that kept all things related to the user in /home (I'm not completely sure Nix does but I may as well throw that in) (homed does not do that as it still has entities outside of /home that you better back up, in fact you'll risk being locked out of your user if you don't)
Atemuas a bonus I would love a system that kept all things related to the user in /home
https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager ;)
Never tried NixOS but I think I will try Qubes-Whonix next: https://www.whonix.org/wiki/Qubes
hyperspaceWhat about Nix's financial issues? Have they been resolved yet?
To get it out of the way first: There are no financial issues. There are more than enough funds to continue operations as they are for a sufficiently long time.
What is actually happening is that a long time sponsor has indicated that they (understandably) no longer want to foot the huge bill of hosting the entire archive of binary caches ($9000/mo). Finding a more sustainable setup is what the community is currently concerned with.
There is no risk of operations shutting down any time soon, the NixOS foundation has funds set aside to continue even this unsustainable setup for at least a year. We just want to be more efficient with our and others resources going forwards.
That’s what all this you might have heard of is about.
Btw, even if the binary cache were to go poof, we don’t technically need it. NixOS is a source-based distro like Gentoo and source hosting is not a concern. The binary cache is immensely helpful though which is why we’d obviously prefer to keep it.
I think AWS Gave them 12 months of free credit to host cache
Yes, AWS gracefully sponsored 12 months of our S3 bill which gives us even more time to enact change.
That’s just the short term resolution though, the Nix community is still looking into more sustainable long-term solutions.
$9,000/mo? Have you considered not using the most ridiculously expensive method possible?
Thinking about this further…
I can purchase 10GE fiber, at home, for $299/mo.
I can purchase a solid 16 bay Supermixro server for around $5k
16TB drives are $168. There’s $3,700 left so let’s buy 21 drives (336TB, 235TB usable under raidz3 zfs). We’ll leave that last $170 for … electricity.
Leasing all of this from a regular hosting provider woul be much more cost effective. I work for one, what the heck are you doing man?
You aren’t a reputable public hoster with AWS-class uptime. That has a price too. AWS is likely overpriced though, hence the nix community still looking for better alternatives.
the Nix community is still looking into more sustainable long-term solutions.
torafuguI don't get the hype. I'm staying with Arch, as Nix seems to be mainly for developers.
NixOS has benefits not just for developers, altough being familiar with programming is helpful.
For me the main benefit of NixOS is to be aable to keep multiple systems in sync. For that I have 3 config files, the first containing all general config and packages I want to have installed. The other two are for my laptop and pc respectively, which allows me to make system-specific changes. E.g. tlp is only enabled and configured on my laptop.
And NixOS isn't just rolling release, it also has bi-annual stable releases, which is great for servers.
Rollbacks are also awesome, altough I used btrfs snapshots a few years back with Arch for a similar result. With a bit of setup they are bootable from grub.
Cegorachnah
didn't have enough time during the last half a decade to learn yet another thing
might be better fit than my current debian setup - but how would I ever know, since my current thing is good enough?
moldyringwaldIt's insanely stable but you have to have a lot of linux/programming knowledge to do even the simplest things like installing/updating your software or making little tweaks. I played with it for hours the other day and I'm just too dumb to figure it out lol I think it's just a super stable highly customizable distro for power users and a lot of people like that. If you can get over the learning curve it's a pretty powerful and unique os
you have to have a lot of linux/programming knowledge to do even the simplest things like installing/updating your software
So, pretty much like any other distro
Most mainstream distro's can do all of that without a CLI.
Weird, every distro I've tried either has no management, or doesn't work. Just spins around loading. "Uninstalling" packages does nothing but remove them from the package manager.