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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PortugalSpaceMoon@infosec.pub

How to improve NixOS performance on old hardware? (infosec.pub)

submitted 1 year ago by pauldfaria@infosec.pub to c/nixos@infosec.pub

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I recently followed https://www.arthurkoziel.com/installing-nixos-on-a-macbookpro/ to install NixOS on a macbookpro5,1 (from 2008). OSX hasn't supported that hardware since El Capitan and it was incredibly slow even then.

With Nix it works, but I'm frequently running into issues similar to https://askubuntu.com/questions/1114612/rcu-sched-self-detected-stall-on-cpu-watchdog-bug-soft-lockup-cpu3-stuck. The first 3 times I tried logging in after the install it hung after accepting the password. It was just logging the rcu stall error every few seconds, not responding to any keys. I was able to create a user account on the 4th boot, but still haven't installed anything extra on it.

It's also really slow to boot. A few minutes in stage 1 before it asks me for the decryption password and then another few minutes to get to the login prompt.

All of this is without any graphical environment. I was planning to go with a low resource desktop like xfce or cinnamon (are they still maintained?), but any tips on what to look at before I possibly introduce more instability?

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[–] PortugalSpaceMoon@infosec.pub 3 points 1 year ago

I suspect this is a problem with your particular combination of hardware and kernel. I doubt this has something to do with NixOS itself, so I would try to see if there's something to be found in the ArchWiki. The solution might be to pick a different kernel and/or using paricular kernel modules/module options. Good luck