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mtndew4brkfst
I'm a user of Nix for about seven years and finally decided back in March, during the second rehash of $sponsor controversy, that I'll stop investing and move away from the tech as soon as I have a suitable replacement.
I've been critical of Nix for a variety of reasons along the way but one of those reasons is how so many people (and consultancies) seem hell-bent to set up their own little fiefdoms within the community.
The community is already niche, we certainly didn't need people purposely driving further fragmentation and incompatibility with these frameworks with bad bus factor and NIH designs.
I've seen a lot of tribalism and cargo culting around some of the other efforts in this vein, too.
bsimpson
I believe Snowflake is one of Jake Hamilton's projects. He's trying to make Nix more approachable through GUI tools etc.
Unfortunately, he's also part of the mob that chased the founder out of the Nix project and decided it should be yet another battleground for identity politics.
Like you, seeing the community entertain these stupid political fiefdoms makes me want nothing to do with NixOS.
However, I might stick with it out of laziness though until SteamOS runs on 3rd party hardware. The Jovian project is a Nix-based SteamOS clone that's been working well on my Legion Go, and I don't want to spend the time back in tinkerland finding something to replace it.
mtndew4brkfst
Let me be very direct - I disagree quite a lot with your characterizations in this post. If anything, I am probably much more closely aligned with Jake's "personal politics", since I also signed the first open letter about rejecting military sponsorship for future events. I felt the second open letter was not well thought out or well argued, so I didn't sign that one, but I do think it's clearly a net positive for Eelco to step way way back and that he has been in no way contributing to healing or progress during this debacle.
I resented people building fiefdoms because they're often commercially motivated and used to drive consulting engagements. They fragment the community on a deeply technical level, ruining code reuse and interoperability, for negligible technical improvements. I don't have any idea what the authors' views on project governance or human rights are, that wasn't a factor for me.
srid
Meta-note to readers who are not completely familiar with the conflicts in the NixOS community. This is a good summary,
The NixOS Conflict in Under 5 Minutes
yjftsjthsd-h
> However, I might stick with it out of laziness though until SteamOS runs on 3rd party hardware.
It's unofficial and I've not personally tried it, but isn't that https://github.com/HoloISO/releases ?
Modified3019
Bazzite and ChimeraOS are good contenders for that use case if you weren’t aware of them, to the point that I am plannng on using one for setting up a system as a “gaming console” for a family member and an email howto should be good enough for minimal tech support on my part.
ParetoOptimal
[flagged]
jm4
I’ve noticed the same things, but I think it’s a symptom of Nix being so polarizing in the first place. I can’t think of another piece of software I dislike so much but I’m willing to put up with it because it’s just that good. Like I can’t wait for someone to come up with a better version. I suspect I’m not alone, and it causes some people to try to abstract away all the warts and sharp edges with these frameworks. Ultimately, it probably comes down to project leadership. There doesn’t seem to be a clear vision, consensus or anybody who can do some wrangling to get things going in a direction.
ilc
People have tried with things like guix and there's a few other Nix spinoffs.
The issue is that: Nix/NixOS is here and JUST good enough. So replacing it will be hard. What is come up with has to solve things so much better that the community who has invested in NixOS and others sees enough light that it is worth moving over.
That's gonna be rough. Given how hard nix (the language) is to deal with, I won't call it impossible, but... I will say, the successor is more likely to succeed if NixOS totally implodes, and I might go as far as to say... only if it implodes or offers substantial back compatibility so people can migrate.
AJRF
> I'm a user of Nix for about seven years and finally decided back in March, during the second rehash of $sponsor controversy, that I'll stop investing and move away from the tech as soon as I have a suitable replacement.
Same for me. We were exploring the use of it across our company for doing the building part of our containers, but the seeping in of identity politics made me rip the whole initiative up, it's simply too risky as you can see very likely paths towards fragmentation and disruption if you use this tech. Such a shame.
KingMob
> seeping in of identity politics made me rip
"seeping in of treating everyone decently made me rip"
FTFY
thower34234324
What about GUIX ?
I tried using it, but the slow-repos, and weird bugs on my laptop (which needs proprietary blobs) put me off. I very much would prefer using scheme to Nix lang but the eco-system is far smaller.
brabel
I really like the idea and architecture of GUIX and I find it like a better design overall than Nix... but unfortunately, being under the GNU, support for proprietary firmware and Operating Systems (i.e. Mac and Windows) makes it really hard for most of us who are using those systems and don't really feel like running a VM just to use whatever software.
I wish they had a separate spinoff that just made sure their software can run on Windows and MacOS, something like exists for emacs, but I think that the challenges are pretty big as they appear to rely on Linux-only APIs?
justahuman74
Do we just need a compromise-happy downstream of guix, much like ubuntu of debian?
mtndew4brkfst
Yeap, proprietary software and firmware are dealbreakers for me too.
heisnotanalien
I don't know much about the project but as an outsider it all just seems totally insane! People writing letters with screenshots of actions really? Liking a post becomes the equivalent to going on a political march or something? I can't help wonder if a lot of these problems would be avoided by more collaborative in person/talking and frankly more emotional awareness. It's all cognitive left-brain stuff - where is the emotional centre?
esafak
Moving to what?
mtndew4brkfst
Unfortunately still TBD. If I didn't have to support MacOS Guix would be somewhat attractive. I've also come around to enjoying systemd and have an Nvidia GPU in one machine, which are both things Guix doesn't wish to support either.
If Nix disappeared overnight I'd probably be using chezmoi to fill in somewhat for Home Manager and mise to fill in somewhat for devShells, and some ansible to try to fill the gaps, and fairly bitter about it.
I'm philosophically opposed to containers in the dev feedback loop, as I want native installation and performance for my language toolchains and editor and such.
binwang
The site you mentioned seem to just link to a bunch of GitHub repos. Neither site answers the questions new users care about the most, like why should I use this new OS and who are the people behind the project.
hyperhopper
How ironic that the post for the beginner friendly OS isn't beginner friendly
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aniviacat
Is this still being worked on?
The most recent commits in the pinned Github repos are two months old. For a project that considers itself "Alpha" and "Not yet ready for daily use" that's a pretty long time of inactivity.
georgyo
In the non-pinned, non-auto updated repos, I see commits from two weeks ago.
Though the main contributors are pretty active with nixpkgs, so a lack of commits here doesn't necessarily mean they aren't working on improving snowflakeos, but working on getting improvements they need implemented upstream.
Carrok
Sheesh. People have lives. Such an absurdly high standard we place on open source maintainers.
_xiaz
In the alpha stage
Also, how hard can it be to touch up on docs or some other small parts at least once a week? If you don't have the time for that maybe don't start a new project?
Carrok
Maybe they’re moving. Maybe they’re on vacation. Maybe they’re getting married or divorced. Maybe a family member just died.
You want weekly doc updates? It’s open source my friend, make a PR or shut the hell up.
Thanks for making my point for me. This is an absurd standard.
“Don’t start a project uness you can commit to weekly updates for perpetuity.”
pxc
Yeah, I think it is still being worked on. It's only got a handful of contributors.
xarope
When I tried nix, I had the most utility from doing a nix-shell -p to get different envs for trying out different versions of apps/environments for dev work.
But for a full system, given universal blue and other variants (e.g. bazzite seems to be having a lot of success on the steam deck), does nix still make sense?
rgoulter
> for a full system ... does nix still make sense?
In many ways, Nix is often "second best at everything". -- Since Nix can be difficult to deal with, it may often be a better choice to use some other tool for any particular use case.
e.g. maybe using asdf is a better way to fetch tools (compared to nix-shell), or docker-compose is a simple way of running project-specific services locally (compared to devenv), or fedora silverblue is a simple way of running an immutable OS (compared to NixOS).
I'd like to think that the benefits from buying into Nix allow easily getting the advantages. e.g. Nix is a more expressive way to build a Docker image or a VM compared to using a Dockerfile or Packer.
For system wide configuration, NixOS allows system-wide configuration declared from a single starting point (possibly composed of several modules), and has those immutable OS benefits like trivial rollbacks.
zxexz
IME, with flakes, yes. Fork nixpkgs and remove what you’re not using, manually cherry pick what you want. That’s not advice I’ve heard anyone give before, but it’s so nice to just have a a distro that is yours, and everything has a purpose. Not advice, just something that works for me on my personal machines.
tkz1312
nixos is unmatched as a server OS, and a lifestyle choice as a desktop distro
rcarmo
I use both now. I find Nix more useful for server environments (and sandboxes). For interactive use, Bluefin/Bazzite are nicer since they tend to cater to their own happy path.
mushufasa
Cool! I had a friend using nixos as desktop daily (he also needed for development work at his company) and he ran int osome real usability issues, but which had nothing to do with the gui.
For example, we were at a wework, and he could *NOT* connect to the corporate wifi and had to just use the 'guest' access. The corporate network requires a cert and is tied to your wework account id. I could do it on Ubuntu by following instructions. He tried following the same instructions, me even helping him over his shoulder, and it just simply did not work, even after we walked through all the same steps that I had done on ubuntu. We were both on gnome desktops. And using similar devices. So something was wrong with how the OS handled the networking, not related to the GUI or hardware.
lillecarl
NixOS is very "unopinionated" and really quite shit after installation, there are a lot of things a normal distro would bundle and enable that nixos doesn't.
Your colleagues problem is not spending years on his config!
gessha
Anecdotal evidence: A lot of the “normal” distros woild have the same problem 5-10 years ago.
im3w1l
This is a bit of an old video (11months) but it looks sleek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XW3mMmN4VM
colordrops
This seems great, and I think would be an amazing distribution, but it doesn't seem that much visible progress has been made in a long while. If there is indeed progress happening behind the scenes, it would be much better if the devs did this in a more visible fashion, and did some evangelizing to attract more contributors and traction.
coretx
Start & sell as a charity, cash in as a commercial enterprise. The #1 scam in vogue right now.
darby_nine
What does "charity" mean outside of the context of christianity?
yencabulator
Mismatching translation for non-profit, perhaps.
coretx
Tax exempt non-profit is what i meant. It insinuates to exist for public interest, not profit. Usually a foundation.
KingMob
Sometimes it means gifting AWS all the profits from your FOSS labor.
hakube
oh great. Another distribution. I think we need more developments on the Desktop Environments and less on new distros
slightwinder
To be fair, this is not just another flavor of Debian or fedora, but about a new promising strain, of which so far only a low number of flavors exist. So it might does add some value to the game.
undefined
Shekelphile
the words 'beginner friendly' and nixos don't belong anywhere near each other
yjftsjthsd-h
I can't see any reason they couldn't go together. Fully using nix is a trip off the deep end of the learning curve, but there's nothing preventing a beginner using a predefined nixos configuration so long as they stay inside the guiderails. With a bit of care, it should even be possible to let them enable whole add-in .nix files to do things like "check this box to enable proprietary nvidia drivers" (which includes a predefined module that handles that).
poikroequ
Actually, I think nixos could be a wonderful base for a beginner friendly OS, by limiting the user to very specific configurations which have been well tested. Don't allow the user to shoot themselves in the foot. But if you allow the user to start writing or modifying nix configurations, then all bets are off.
zebomon
I think it should be pretty easy to pick up for anyone who has experience with any other Linux distro, or even just experience with command line. The docs were clear and current when I got started with it.
tkz1312
having the raw power of nix/nixos hidden behind a normie friendly UI layer has insane potential. It basically eliminates any potential for horrible dependency conflicts and gives users an undo button for all but the deepest (i.e. bootloader / firmware) level changes to their system. nixpkgs is also the most comprehensive and up to date linux package set by a huge distance.
Cloudef
I can see something where nix is used for the immutable base, and then the user installs apps using flatpak or similar. Kinda like how fedora silver blue and other immutable distros work.
esjeon
Arch has always been 'beginner friendly' according to Arch users, so why can't Nix? /s
But, yeah, Nix can be really nasty to troubleshoot because of the lack of information. The Nix documentation is still PITA, and the much of usual Linux guides (which are everywhere on the internet) won't apply to Nix systems. You have to learn a lot.
If what you want is a simple system with a web browser and some games, this should mostly work, but Fedora Silverblue would provide much more integrated and solid DE for that purpose. Being image-based release-based distro, it does offer pretty decent UX. Nix is rolling release, and everything is scattered just like Arch.
thower34234324
In fairness, nixos is way easier to setup than arch; it also has a stable channel. The sharp bits only come to bite when you want to touch nix-lang (eg. write a flake; create a new package etc.).
darthrupert
Yeah this is accurate. I've installed arch several times over the last decade and can mostly do it by heart without consulting the docs... but the amount of possible choices is just crazy and keeps going up.
Also, things like disk encryption is easy to get wrong, leading to another boot from the usb/mount everything/fix loop.
Nix has a graphical installer, which makes most of these choices for you. Different projects have added similar installers on top of Arch too, making its indtallation as easy.
And in actual use Arch is much simpler.
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colordrops
That's the whole point of snowflake OS. You obviously didn't spend any time looking into the project. The idea is to have GUIs that configure the OS like any other distro, and write and build the Nix configs behind the scenes.
Qwertious
Will the GUI write my custom package nixfile for me? Writing a configuration.nix isn't hard, but that's all that Snowflake sounds like it does.
colimbarna
If you want to go beyond writing a configuration.nix then you don't want a beginner friendly anything. Configuration.nix does at least as much as any user-friendly operating system does.
ParetoOptimal
The goalposts isn't writing custom packages, it is accessibility and reproducibility benefits of NixOS to non-programmers.
yjftsjthsd-h
> Will the GUI write my custom package nixfile for me?
What distro provides a GUI to write custom package specs for you?
wejick
I have zero experience with nix, but I understood it has good build tool that many people use.
But on what way nix is immutable I never know, anyone kind enough to explain ?
somnic
For the vast majority of files, whether those are executables, config files, or libraries, nix doesn't just put them in standard locations for Linux systems, but instead puts them in /nix/store/ with a directory derived from a hash of all its inputs and dependencies. For example, I have mpv in the nix store at /nix/store/08a907bw4csdc44408a992lnc9v2802c-mpv-0.38.0 and this has the default config, the binaries, completions, libraries, etc.
Since the directory is titled based on the hash of the various inputs that go into building the package, when I run an upgrade it's not going to overwrite the old version of mpv, but instead it's going to put the new version in the nix store as well, at a different directory. Until you collect garbage, to clear out the old versions of things you're not using any more, nothing is deleted.
So while you can add and delete entries to the nix store, each entry itself is read-only once it's been built, and thus immutable.
undefined
senectus1
[flagged]
jm4
What’s wrong with it? It’s really a good description of what it is and Nix users immediately recognize the association. It’s a great name if you are trying to attract Nix people.
pxc
As I'm sure you know, 'snowflake' has become a pejorative. But in the end I agree with you: that sarcastic usage is a recent and unimportant fad. Words have multiple connotations and those connotations are often context bound. And the intricacy and uniqueness of actual, literal, snowflakes are beautiful and interesting.
undefined
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The site is bereft of details, but it appears to be related to https://snowfall.org, which has a little more detail.