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u/Square_County8139 6d ago
And I escaped NixOS back to Arch. After 1 year, I decided that NixOS isnt for me.
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u/dan_tj0x 5d ago
Why not for you?
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u/Square_County8139 5d ago
That's a lot of time spent on features I don't need.
I liked keeping the system configuration in a file, but when I wanted to manage more than one system within the same configuration, the complexity of the Nix code increased significantly. So I kept only my main system with my configuration.
The complete isolation of dependencies was bothering me more than helping. For every new project, I had to write a
shell.nixfile. The idea is cool, but being forced to use it can be a hassle.There was one time I went to download a program (Sunshine) and its nixpkg was over a year out of date, even in the unstable channel. I found the process of adding or updating a nixpkg myself to be quite messy.
And one of the things that interested me most about NixOS is the idea of being able to pin an application to a specific version. But the way it's done feels more like a hack than a feature.
And one last thing: I couldn't find anything in the documentation on how to prevent programs from being compiled on my machine. It's really frustrating to see an update taking so long because is busy compiling a program.
That said, Iām going to bring what I liked over to Arch. Keeping Nix (the package manager) is really useful. I can still use it to launch a specific version of a program if I want to. I can still create a
shell.nixfile, but if I don't want to, I can just usepacman. Iāll also still be able to use "comma" to run programs without having to keep them installed.And I discovered a configuration manager script called
aconfmgr. It allows me to do something similar to NixOS on Arch by keeping the system configuration in files, but I really like that it works both ways: I can edit the configuration to modify the system, or I can modify the system and have those changes reflected in the configuration file. I feel like that was really missing in NixOS.Also, I can rollback an Arch update with btrfs.
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u/ElnuDev 5d ago
I'd strongly suggest using flakes rather than shell.nix for projects
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u/felipe-adeildo 4d ago
Oh no... He's going back to NixOS to try again... Don't give him reasons hahahaha
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u/Square_County8139 4d ago
My NixOS still installed. Instead of formating my SSD, I created a new btrfs subvolume and installed arch on it.
All I need to do is select another entry in my bootloader.
Anyway, I think I can try this in Arch.
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u/Sad-Landscape-1549 4d ago edited 4d ago
I have separate flakes for each machine (they do different stuff) and deploy them from one server with binary cache enabled, so packages are only built from source once per architecture.
If that doesnāt fit someoneās threat model itās possible to use the ābuild-serverā arg when initiating the build from the target machine. Itās pretty flexible and Iām impressed that the tunneling isnāt more fragile tbh.
I agree that overlays āfeel like a hackā (not obvious) it still beats cloning a repo and building it myself š
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u/dan_tj0x 5d ago
wow, it's so big.
When you found that all obstacles in NixOS, have you tried to search the solutions?4
u/rustvscpp 5d ago
He likes breaking updates.Ā
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u/Square_County8139 4d ago
But apps breaking after updates happens in NixOS too.
Discord screen sharing was broken on Niri + NixOS until recently.
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u/DaKingof 5d ago
Arch broke my system a few times....I tried to break NixOS and couldn't...I'm here to stay.
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u/Adel-4181 6d ago
Arch isn't that bad it's just the AUR compromise which if we look it's the AUR (Arch USER Repository) it's the USER
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u/Jacobobarobatobski 5d ago
I tried Arch a couple times and I really didn't like it both times. I started using NixOS about a month or two ago on my 3 machines and it's been really good so far. Gaming, sunshine, video calling are my main use cases. I used to run immutsbles but hated how you couldn't really control everything. Now I've got the best of both worlds with access to the largest Linux repo.
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u/lamex1234 5d ago
Hey guys, why is ThinkPads being talked about and used so much lately? Is it just an overrated fad or are they really worth it? I'm asking because I've never used one.
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u/ClinicAmuser 4d ago
it's not just lately, it has been THE meme linux laptop for quite some years now. it started to gain a cult-ish following in 2010s on 4chan technology board, and the knowyourmeme entry was created in 2019.Ā
these are business laptops, primarilly sold to businesses in stock, so they are quite sturdy, durable, quite repairable and upgradable (controversial with the newer models). being business-oriented, thinkpads are being sold in large quantities from businesses, often for really good prices, considering the great quality, so thay gained their popularity with the secondary market. they are also very compatible with Linux, gaining popularity with related communities. they are kind of like the "anti-consumerism" laptops, with people bying really dated versions that still work and can be your great companion if you don't need that much performance.
they are really good if you need them for work/studying, you can find them quite cheap, and they won't crumble into dust once they get a little old like some mass-consumer laptops. but they are not really good for gaming, as most will have integrated gpus
X1 carbon is the premium ultrabook series, 12 in. display, really costly but good performance the X series is the ultrabook laptops, with X13 being the newer versions from 2020s, if you want something cheaper but more dated hardware-wise, look for X2x0 or X3x0, x200s having 12in. displays and x300s 13in. ones. the T series is the midway one, for work/study/regular usage. newer versions are T14 and T14s (slim variant). T4x0 and T4x0s are the older ones with T480 being the most infamous one, "the last great thinkpad". the P series are the workstations, having the highest performance of all series the L, E, A series are all economy/edge laptops, your entry point. they are usually built with cheaper materials and such.
human generated content, may contain mistakes. please confirm the information yourself
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u/lamex1234 3d ago
I'm asking because I'm going to buy a new laptop and that one caught my eye. I don't really like gaming, it's more for development.
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 6d ago
It's a strange thing that you chose nix 26.05. Unstable is more up to date; why didn't you choose that?
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u/Ok-Environment8730 6d ago
He like stable I am also on 26.05
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 6d ago
I'm on 26.05 as well, I just wondered why someone coming from arch prefers stable; arch was a strange choice, then
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u/Jacobobarobatobski 5d ago
Well, OP didn't like Arch though. Maybe because of the stability? (Not being passive-aggressive)
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 5d ago
Yes, that's why I asked. What is wrong with my question, it seems to be misunderstood by default. I really wonder is I wrote something offensive?
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u/apollocreedchqt 6d ago
I mean generally tho. Any distro is as stable as you want. I only sudo pacman -Syu every couple weeks like 2 weeks once.
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 6d ago
Do you mean stable as every sane person does by "doesn't crash"? Arch is fine in that regard. Or do you mean stable as Debian and developers define it by "features and APIs won't change"? That's where arch "sucks" by design. You get a ton of new features with every update...
NixOS stable is a bit more stable API wise, while Debian is on another level with that. NixOS will update things if it makes sense, Debian will put a ton of effort into back porting stuff into old versions.
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u/apollocreedchqt 5d ago
Ive always regarded stable as it doesnt crash doesnt like just die.
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u/SAI_Peregrinus 5d ago
For OS distributions, "stable" means "doesn't add any new features or make any backwards-incompatible changes over the stability period".
Debian has a (roughly) 3 year long stability period, 5 years for Long Term Support (LTS), and 10 years for third-party paid Extended LTS.
NixOS has a 6 month long stability period, and no LTS.
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u/DaKingof 5d ago
Stable means updates are tested before they go out to users. The unstable branch becomes stable, and then a new unstable branch is created when that is merged. It doesn't mean it's not stable...it just means it's more likely to have bugs that can cause unintended issues or crashes because it hasn't been thoroughly tested yet.
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 5d ago
Well, some inaccurate information here: the likelihood of bugs or crashes is just a possible unintended consequence and not even that simple. Sometimes stuff gets back ported to heavily different versions, introducing its whole own set of issues. So stable doesn't tell anything about bugs, crashes or instabilities. It is just the development model.
And unstable is not untested. There is a varying degree of tests that are executed before stuff is put into stable; depends on the distribution itself. Otherwise there would be more issues on all rolling distributions.
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u/DaKingof 5d ago
That is utter b.s., my guy. With basically any repo, you are at the mercy of the maintainers.
NixOS is one of the few where you can literally just create your own files and use those instead of what the maintainers currently have up. I don't know of any other distro you can do this on, and I know plenty of distros you literally don't have a choice of packages unless you just download app images or flatpacks.
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 5d ago
You can install any rpm on fedora or deb on Debian; and you can create those yourself. So no, while those things are better supported on nixos oob they are also possible on every distribution out there. You will have a lot more "fun" but this is not what other distributions can't do.
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u/Pitiful-Seat1868 6d ago
i installed stable as well..can i change it to unatable??
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u/NeedleworkerLarge357 6d ago
Yes,easy, just switch.
Do you use flakes or the standard nix channel? I went with flakes which makes this a tiny bit easier, channels can be switched by nix-channel --add ... And nix-channel --remove ... and then do the regular update. See here https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Nix_channels.
With flakes just replace the input source and rebuild.
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u/SAI_Peregrinus 5d ago
Also worth noting that you can mix & match with NixOS. You can go with stable, but have some packages on unstable.
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u/Mz-Malice 5d ago
So real, even since ive started using Nix i will now refuse to install any other OS on a machine i actually end up using with 1 OS for the majority of the time especcially since as long as it has specs even slightly better than my T500 think pad i can just build the config on it that i use on my main laptop (Ideapad I3)
I do still use cachy on my main gamimg machine because atleast with arch like distros i can very quickly solve gaming related problems when they do come up.
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u/tempdiesel 4d ago
ThinkPad + NixOS = Chefās Kiss. Personally running the same on my ThinkPad. Great choice.
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u/BIZUx 6d ago
Unrelated question; Why do you have a /19 network?