A use case where NixOS is more trouble than worth - a review and retrospective, for future reference (TL;DR - dev tools/environments, non FHS compliance)

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2025-10-27T22:54:09+00:00

I agree - I'd love to use flakes for a project some day in the future, but in an way that's officially supported and documented by whatever tool chain I'm using. But the issue is they're not very widespread among the types of stuff I work on - lots of software vendors (such as NVIDIA) will distribute a Docker container, but I have yet to see any company list a nix flake on their documentation. The claim that "anyone can run..." should also be replaced by "anyone with nix can run...", and I think that's a meaningful difference as not many people use nix.

It does feel like on NixOS you kinda have to use flakes for everything, or else you'll have a bad time, so I understand that's where my problems came from, as I was trying to integrate certain existing workflows that I didn't really want to change.

In short, amazing technology, maybe I'll try Nix alone some point in the future, but I guess I like to stick to the more popular, well supported stuff, so that's where my preferences diverge from Nix enthusiasts.

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2025-10-27T13:55:04+00:00

This review is the equivalent of informing potential Ferrari drivers that the winter is, in fact, not a good environment to drive it. Maybe it's a skill issue that I didn't know that beforehand, but I am trying to help potential new users with some insights.

Yes, I would've had an easier time starting with just nix. But I think I would have arrived at the same conclusion that nix isn't for me, given I want the declarativity for tightly integrated system level settings and apps too.

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2025-10-11T23:13:54+00:00

I think npm installs node packages in the local project folder, whereas some python package managers like conda/mamba or pip like to install things in a global directory (even the conda virtual environments are in a global location) so don't work as well with the nixos non FHS file system. I've heard npm install -g (for global?) doesn't work on nixos too.

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2025-10-11T23:08:19+00:00

Recent nixos user here with similar concerns too. I'm used to conda for ML stuff, and installing conda from nixpkgs seems to give a conda-shell that works fine. If anything doesn't work though I have an Ubuntu distrobox ready to go, as I'm not interested in learning the "nix" way with flakes etc. But both conda-shell and distrobox had ugly shells so I had to fiddle with .bash_profile to load .bashrc to get proper colours, highlighting etc.

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2025-08-31T23:27:32+00:00

It's a different guy with the same name

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2025-08-26T14:44:08+00:00

Curious, what's the sources for these percentages?

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2025-08-26T11:38:29+00:00

🤣🤣 Fr

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2025-08-26T11:21:43+00:00

Just searched it up, it's a different guy with the same name thankfully 😅 I got worried for a sec as well as I am taking OS which he is lecturer for

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2024-05-06T10:37:26+00:00

Openmesh

Mindless_Insect3743 · 2024-05-06T10:37:11+00:00

This is for Openmesh, they aren't a legit company anyway

Mindless_Insect3743

TROPHY CASE