this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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NixOS

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NixOS is a Linux distribution built on top of the Nix package manager. Its declarative configuration allows reliable system upgrades via several official channels of stability and size.

This community discusses NixOS, Nix, and everything related.

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What do you as a fail safe when there isnt a flake or nix package for what you need, and you don't have the time or ability to create it?

Here's my particular example. I need the beta version of OpenSCAD, which is only delivered as a flatpak in the beta flatpak channel, which I have tried but have been unsuccessful in doing. I havent even attempted building from source. Only the stable version is in nixpkgs. In this case, what would you do?

And in general, what do you do? Install things using a different package manager, like pip, npm, cargo, etc and manage at the user level? Do you run a VM? Docker? Let me know what your backup plan is on NixOS.

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[–] PortugalSpaceMoon@infosec.pub 2 points 1 year ago

I think would just try to compile it from source. Using a different package manager seems very weird. I suspect getting the source to build on nixOS is more or less equivalent in terms of effort than to create a derivation. I have done so in the past and I ended up pushing them to nixpkgs. If compiling is out of the question, I guess docker but I havn't had to do that, yet.