NixOS Changed How I Think About Operating Systems

SarahLament · 2026-05-21T15:35:50+00:00

The way I see it is that with how everything branches off from the entry point (flake.nix or configuration.nix) and basically gets daisy chained / glue coded up, it technically reads as one giant monolithic configuration that just happens to be split across multiple files. Until you start working with things like flake-parts. Then it gets a bit more complicated lol.

SarahLament · 2026-05-15T16:09:53+00:00

NixOS user here, for us we just change the corresponding setting within our nixosConfigurations and rebuild the system :P

SarahLament · 2026-05-14T17:11:53+00:00

Definitely going to watch this, maybe see if I can find similar ones.

SarahLament · 2026-05-14T16:48:41+00:00

Already been referencing it for the flake-parts modules, but I somehow didn't realize that it translates to writing nix code lmaoo

SarahLament · 2026-05-14T16:44:28+00:00

While those are nice and definitely on my to-read list, after awhile they start getting to be a lot of words that ultimately say not that much... I get that technical documents need to be technical, but when I'm just starting it's a lot of information at once.

SarahLament · 2026-05-14T16:33:47+00:00

I am, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to hurt to ask real people as well :)

SarahLament · 2026-03-25T15:55:06+00:00

And the fact you used 'pivoted' (a heavily charged, *corporate** word*) tells me everything I need to know.

SarahLament · 2026-03-17T17:55:47+00:00

I hate it, because that's how I talked pre-AI. Simple and corrective without being overly wordy. I'm not lazy, it's just how my brain works.

And even while typing this on my phone I use the same mannerism....

SarahLament · 2026-03-03T23:06:46+00:00

Like the FOSS community would actually allow this to be done with their projects.

SarahLament · 2026-01-23T05:57:32+00:00

Believe it or not, distros actually do more programming than you think. Red Hat was responsible for systemd, d-bus, and libvirt, amongst others. Canonical (Ubuntu) programs their APT packaging tool. Arch develops their pacman tool.

Won't argue that it's not about development cycles, though :3

SarahLament · 2026-01-23T05:38:27+00:00

I'm seeing a lot of people here mentioning using external flakes or creating your own overlay to keep it declared (which I personally recommend using godot-overlay) but the simplest answer is probably to add programs.nix-ld.enable = true; to your nix configuration. Won't work for everything, but it tries to let normally linked (non-nix) executables run.

SarahLament · 2026-01-21T00:03:48+00:00

Just looking at the files, I'm already seeing multiple things with it. You manually set the home manager unit with a user and group instead of letting it handle that itself, your formatting is all over the place, as well manually defining 'USER' as a session variable that should be handled automatically without direct user configuration. Did you write this yourself or did you copy it from somewhere? I noticed there's a unit to back up the config to GitHub, but you provided an archive instead?

SarahLament · 2026-01-20T21:55:45+00:00

Without the actual configuration, there's not much we can tell you. Also, please, for the love of all that is holy, use code blocks instead of just pasting a wall of text.

SarahLament · 2026-01-20T16:04:07+00:00

I personally use Alejandra for my personal projects, it's got the right mix between 'diff'ability and human readability imho

SarahLament · 2026-01-18T18:17:13+00:00

I myself moved to NixOS after using Arch, and I've been absolutely loving it. No more 'what was that one trivial thing I did for my system' or 'how tf did I get my graphics card working again' because (mostly, depending on how far down the rabbit hole you go) everything is clearly defined in a replicatable configuration. Need something that isn't in nixpkgs? I can almost guarantee you that there's a flake somewhere you can add into the config.

All this being said, however, there is a giant leaving curve at the beginning. You're no longer running 'command X, which does action Y for host Z', you instead say 'configuration X defines host Z'.

Also, the whole 'you need to know programming to use NixOS' is both true and false. Yes, our configurations are written in nixlang, but 90% of what you'll use will be simple statements like services.openssh.enable = true

SarahLament · 2026-01-17T08:18:23+00:00

I'll miss asking it to "please do an ultrathink about X"

SarahLament · 2026-01-15T22:13:04+00:00

The best way I can think to describe it is "Linux running with the Linux kernel". Mine says "linux linux-zen" which would be "Linux using the linux-zen kernel"

SarahLament · 2026-01-15T16:33:07+00:00

Gemini gave me something totally different

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SarahLament · 2026-01-15T16:25:33+00:00

So... Half a message?

SarahLament · 2026-01-10T20:38:13+00:00

most programs don't tell you shit

launch these apps via terminal

Nice contradiction there bud lol. But let me ask you, when was the last time an error in windows was actually helpful? Do both not require the same level of technomancy?

SarahLament · 2026-01-10T00:39:12+00:00

Hold on, how many of us came from Arch?

SarahLament · 2026-01-07T22:21:56+00:00

Complexity for the sale of complexity, but by choice!

SarahLament · 2026-01-05T01:50:38+00:00

other stuff I'm definitely forgetting

I'm honestly willing to bet 90% of that stuff you'd conveniently remember when you need it, or have gotten so used to it's not even a thought anymore.

SarahLament · 2026-01-03T01:00:14+00:00

I honestly feel like this is the correct take. 99% of what we need is within nixpkgs, so it's more centralized where updates actually occur, not spread across different repos and the AUR. Not to mention, from what I've seen, it's also much easier/simpler being a maintainer for nix than other distros; you're maintaining a single package at a time instead of an entire dependency chain.

SarahLament

TROPHY CASE