this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Why everyone is switching to NixOS ? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by L0Wigh@sh.itjust.works to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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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 !

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[–] Tilted@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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
[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] L0Wigh@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The configuration stuff seems great. I guess it reduce the struggle of porting a full config from one pc to another right ?

[–] Tilted@programming.dev 1 points 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.

[–] SrEstegosaurio@lemmy.ml 1 points 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).

[–] priapus@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Gentoo1337@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Wow, that sounds really cool (specially the config thing). I'll have to try it sometime.

[–] SirNuke@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] pfpoitras@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

What are you using instead?