NixOS: Everything Everywhere All At Once

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NixOS: Everything Everywhere All At Once

Рет қаралды 294,707

5 ай бұрын

Alternate Title: NixOS: Stability on the Bleeding-Edge
One day, as happens now and then with a bleeding-edge rolling release distro, a systemd update reversed my mouse buttons.
The great thing about rolling-release and cutting-edge distributions like Arch Linux, is that you get to be a beta tester, whether you like it or not!
I thought this was the way it had to be on Linux: Stability or cutting-edge features, not both.
But that wasn't right at all, with NixOS you can have everything, everywhere all at once!
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🖊️ Corrections are in the pinned ERRATA comment.
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Пікірлер: 974

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

ERRATA - @Vimjoyer's video is here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/l5xnhtllssjcnZc.html - 0:18 Misspelled "LINUX" in the title, classic me! - Asahi USED to be arch-based, now fedora-based. Same problem, different flavour! - The TOML examples shouldn't have semicolons at the end

@pcfreak1992 5 ай бұрын

Lynx or Linux? 0:38 😅

@SumriseHD 5 ай бұрын

I am literally installing Arch Linux, btw, after using Fedora for a while and now you upload this. 😂

@jh-devv 5 ай бұрын

@@SumriseHD yeah, it happens, though Arch has it's upsides: at least you get to know your system! I used it before NixOS, learned tons of stuff from it (e.g. drivers, package management, bleeding edge etc.)

@vildis. 5 ай бұрын

Missing ] at 4:46 on line 1?

@ryuji_terix 5 ай бұрын

In the descriptions there are "alternate video titles" but are referring to rust pure functions

@SmartassEyebrows 5 ай бұрын

Taking the Cloud world's "configuration as code" philosophy and applying it to an OS in this particular way is honestly brilliant.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

What's wild is that Nix came FIRST! It's 20 years old!

@Schmogel92 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate what is the reason for it becoming popular only recently?

@akkesm 5 ай бұрын

@@Schmogel92I'm guessing the learning curve is so high that nobody ever got to the good part. NixOS didn't even have a GUI installer until last year. I've been using it for 3/4 years and I have no intention of leaving. It's the best distro for software development by far.

@akkesm 5 ай бұрын

On the flip side, NixOS is so hard to learn that, by the time you are able to use it, you can contribute to it. It's easy, it's all text files in a git repo. As a result, NixOS has a higher percentage of contributors compared to other distros.

@matthewcroughan 5 ай бұрын

If anything, the cloud world took that from Nix, given that Nix was created in 2003

@vimjoyer 5 ай бұрын

Thanks for the shoutout! I've been watching your channel for a long time, and I never thought I'd hear you recommend my video. Feels very surreal.

@user-nq9vh7mv7k 5 ай бұрын

well deserved. your videos carry every nix newbie.

@samuelwaller4924 5 ай бұрын

Moments like this make the internet great. Thank you both for helping the community like you do, I hope you feel the impact you make

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

My dude! Thank you for your nice words, and your incredible videos! You've got a great style, email me, let's chat 😀

@luisliz 5 ай бұрын

@vimjoyer If it wasn’t for you I would’ve never dared. You make it approachable.

@vaisakhkm783 5 ай бұрын

@@luisliz ikr.. he is only the reason i got started and still loving it..

@DeerDesigner 5 ай бұрын

Small correction - Asahi USED to be arch-based, nowadays the official, blessed asahi distro is fedora-based

@CipherOne 5 ай бұрын

🤮

@fastlearner292 Ай бұрын

Bruh

@mpogrzebski Ай бұрын

Don't be a hater @@CipherOne

@xanderplayz3446 13 күн бұрын

@@CipherOneWhat’s wrong with fedrora (except DNF, DNF is slooooow).

@blehbleh9283 5 ай бұрын

NixOS was a bit too limited for packages back when I first saw it in mid 2010s, but I think that graph and the annoyance of updating/keeping up with news for Arch might've just convinced me to switch

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Right! I had the same impression, it's WILD, everything is here, including all my weird music plugins and streaming stuff!

@blehbleh9283 5 ай бұрын

Hahaha. I just got the config table 12:26 This is so much better. So much brain space was wasted on which config where and what to edit. Thanks for the videos! Love the channel

@asdfghyter 5 ай бұрын

i probably wouldn’t recommend NixOS to most linux users, especially because of the learning curve, but i would certainly recommend that every single arch user tries it out

@jeiang 5 ай бұрын

I've been using NixOS for about 6 months now, and I love it. My favorite"feature" is impermanence, so my system rebuilds itself from fresh on every boot.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Ooh, that's cool, Vimjoyer talks about that feature.

@jeiang 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate yea it's useful, like for backups because all my files not managed by my config (my system state) are in one place (under /persist), so I just need to back up that

@angeldude101 5 ай бұрын

Mounting root on a tmpfs for a daily driver feels like it should be insanity, and yet NixOS lets you get away with so much that it's somehow become completely normalized. It's kind of amazing.

@Schmogel92 5 ай бұрын

What are your boot times like?

@jeiang 5 ай бұрын

@@Schmogel92 pretty quick, I also have disk encryption, but I think it’s around 20 - 30 secs

@cid-chan-2 5 ай бұрын

Some nitpicks - nixos-unstable has automated tests. In fact these tests cause nixos-unstable to lag behind master by up to one week if there are critical test failures, like rendering the system in an unbootable state, or similar problems. NixOS-stable works by freezing versions of critical system components, only selectively porting back versions where neccessary. - Addendum: even the package definitions are tracked by git. There is also the nixos master branch. You dont want to use that branch ever directly. This one is the branch with 0 tests applied (except: is it valid nix code?) - you can also configure your system using json.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Interesting! Thanks for those details, I don't think you're contradicting anything I've said, just providing more information? And yes, I know about configuring nix in json. That is not an improvement from my point of view lol

@emdivine 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate could you sell me on how toml would be a better alternate config format than json? If you're going to pick a non-recommended format anway

@NatoBoram 3 ай бұрын

YAML and Toml are easier to read and write than JSON for humans as you don't have to be concerned about escaping quotes in the middle of a string

@FreshSmog 5 ай бұрын

I think you forgot to mention another important part. Nix can be installed as just a package manager on any other distro and gets you much of the benefits of nixos on user packages. For average home users who don't configure systemd or manage user groups, the package manager might be all they need. It's also why people use home-manager, it installs and configures home packages and works on both nixos and nix package manager.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

That's a useful part, but having all your software, kernel to userspace configured in one system is the life-changing part I'm excited about.

@jeffrey1298 5 ай бұрын

there's also another project called system-manager which allows nixos modules on non-nixos distros. i've never tried it and have no idea how well it works, but it exists!

@MrMrCraftmine 5 ай бұрын

yeah well, i tried using nix and home-manager on my Pop_OS!, however it completely broke my system beyond repair and I had to reinstall...

@0thLaw 5 ай бұрын

Video suggestion: rapid prototyping in Rust. I love rust and colleagues comment all the time the amount of effort it requires to build even a proof of concept. Granted, rust forces you to do you due diligence before you can even try to run it. However, I would very much like to learn tips and techniques to easily do rapid development, cut some corners to get it going. Some ideas: disallow optimized builds when corners are still cut, use todo!(), initially build everything with just traits and automocks and gradually implement them (feels like tdd without the tests, but still designed to be loosely coupled).

@Rudxain 5 ай бұрын

Another tip is to avoid the borrow-checker by simply `clone`ing everything. `rustc` can sometimes optimize `clone`s into borrows

@user-anonymous1337 5 ай бұрын

Try using Copy traits everywhere. It might go against the Rust philosophy but if you want fast prototyping it's definitely make it faster.

@twenty-fifth420 5 ай бұрын

0:35 Linx OS is a Linux distro that purrs when you pet the start button and roars mightly when you install a package 😂. We have fun here at no boilerplate.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

woops! added to the errata :-D

@DavidConnerCodeaholic 5 ай бұрын

As someone who’s basically only ever written a single RPM… writing pkgs in Nix and Guix is so unbelievably efficient in comparison. Linux would have to be ludicrous not to gravitate towards these solutions.

@Nicfallenangel 5 ай бұрын

12:53 "I'm sharing this just between you, and me, and 200,000 of my closest friends." 😂 That was gold. And I've never thought of using TOML, YAML, or any other ML to generate config. That's an interesting approach to get around learning the syntax at first.

@idkwtpaah 5 ай бұрын

You know that something is amazing when No Boilerplate covers it NixOS rocks!

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

I'm so late to the party lol

@bew 5 ай бұрын

But you came, welcome o/

@Synthetica9 5 ай бұрын

I've been running nixos as my main os since 2017, and I still have this original install 1000+ generations later.

@ToyKeeper 5 ай бұрын

I've been running Debian as my main OS since 1997, and despite upgrading, replacing, and diversifying the hardware a bunch of times, I still have basically the same original install 27 years later. It is a little weird though, seeing the 1990s in a "ls -alt ~". :D

@sachinchaudhary1310 4 ай бұрын

@@ToyKeeper bro what ? are u sure wtf bro.. i mean amazing bro...

@ToyKeeper 4 ай бұрын

@@sachinchaudhary1310 Not a bro.

@sachinchaudhary1310 4 ай бұрын

@@ToyKeeper really women's are amazing

@arden6725 3 ай бұрын

@@ToyKeeper never thought i’d see the same toykeeper that made the firmware my flashlight runs in a youtube comment section!

@andylees8939 5 ай бұрын

FYI, arch based distros using btrfs for the root FS allow rollback to a previous state. This has saved my bacon on a few (important) occasions. Garuda is worthwhile checking out.

@0LoneTech 5 ай бұрын

Also possible, but takes some setting up, on Debian using snapper, some subvolumes and hooks. It covers the rollback function, but not so much the background building with atomic live switching.

@antonliakhovitch8306 5 ай бұрын

Before I switched to NixOS, I used OpenSUSE specifically for this. Snapper is great and I still use it on my user files

@NeftisIsHere 5 ай бұрын

snapper my beloved

@electricant55 2 ай бұрын

Same with openSUSE (another rolling distro)

@scottmuc2112 5 ай бұрын

This was a really good overview! I'm nix-curious and am often confused on what exactly nix is... now I understand it's more than just 1 tool. The super-updated package repo has me sold. I used to think nix-folks just loved having everything locked down to a known good version and letting it stay that way. Now I understand that nix is a toolkit to help you never leave your packages, config, and dependencies stale.

@ejiek 5 ай бұрын

nvd - Nix/NixOS package version diff tool This tool helps to see what actually changes within an update. After updating flake.lock or any other tempering with my config I run: ‘nixos-rebuild build --flake 'flake-path#' && nvd diff /run/current-system result’. It shows it all. Version changes, package and dependency changes.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

cool! thank you

@xard64 5 ай бұрын

What makes the NixOS way of working interesting is that it seems to be a perfect fit for a corporate deployment. While I haven't still tested using NixOS it seems like that with it you could easily create static configurations and then deploy them number of machines and easily update them using a single base configuration file. The base configuration in turn could be layered to multiple custom variants featuring legacy tweaks for the corner case installations without interfering the updates.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

EXACTLY, but also that's cool for home use, I was able to put my desktop's config file on my laptop, run a rebuild, and 15 minutes later had a copy of my deskop. it was a MOMENT, for me!

@SolarLiner 5 ай бұрын

As a matter of fact, you *can* manage NixOS configurations from remotely. With flakes it's even more powerful as you can have multiple archetype configurations for an entire fleet of servers and desktops and have them rebuild all from a single "command center" machine. I almost want to become a sysadmin just to be able to feel that powerful.

@IogaMaster 5 ай бұрын

I run a few servers in my home for various tasks. Running a deployment and all servers update is magical.

@jh-devv 5 ай бұрын

Awesome to see you cover NixOS! 🎉

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

I couldn't not, I AM FINALLY POWERFUL ENOUGH!

@vaisakhkm783 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate it's too powerful.. especially when you love functional... :D

@onrir 5 ай бұрын

"or whatever it is python is using by the time you are watching this" 😅

@fizipcfx 5 ай бұрын

pip poetry conda pyproject.toml...., i think he is right 😂😂😂

@Anonymous4045 5 ай бұрын

pip, poetry, anaconda, pipenv, pdm, apt, virtualenv, take your pick 😂

@marro7120 5 ай бұрын

he said also npm, and its not for python 😅

@roze_sha 5 ай бұрын

Rye

@geeshta 5 ай бұрын

hatch

@shawnmiguel 5 ай бұрын

I was just watching some past videos and wishing that you would make something covering Nix. Thanks man, your videos help me a lot.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Thank you :-)

@samskyset 5 ай бұрын

i haven't been genuinely excited by linux content like this before. i wrote off nix without really looking into it, but this is unironically exactly what i've been looking for--after a journey spanning mint to arch bahaha, thank you for this lovely introduction :)

@RenderingUser 5 ай бұрын

NO WAY. I could have never expected this. I've taken a lot of interest in nix recently. Can't believe you covered it

@biscotty6669 3 ай бұрын

Great to see yet more vids on NixOS. For those wanting to try, I strongly suggest installing Nix on your current distro and/or NixOS in a VM. It will be way less frustrating. You can take advantage of many features of Nix without running NixOS itself. Ideally set up a system configured as you like with all you need in a VM, and use the configs to build your configured system right away when you do the real install. You won't have to redo anything, so no wasted time but a "safe" learning environment.

@ryancarlson9680 Ай бұрын

That’s a super helpful idea, thank you

@biscotty6669 Ай бұрын

@@ryancarlson9680 even after running it for 6 months on a server I didn't feel comfortable flipping the switch until everything I needed was working, so I was sure my "real work" wasn't impacted. 🍀

@codetothemoon 5 ай бұрын

Very nice! Love the NixOS approach to things. Gave it a try recently but probably gave up too quickly. You’ve inspired me (and undoubtedly many others) to give it another go!

@blurryface1427 5 ай бұрын

I knew you had to eventually drop a nix video

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

I've been fighting it for so long lol

@awabqureshi814 5 ай бұрын

I was just looking into this yesterday, and decided I would wait until someone else made a video on it. I am very happy to see this. You read my mind!

@__shaun__ 5 ай бұрын

JIMMY CARR USES NIX?!

@hiibolt 5 ай бұрын

I’ve daily’d NixOS for over 2 years now, and the rollback menu is so, incredibly, amazingly powerful. I use a non-Qwerty layout, and broke my operating system multiple times getting native drivers to work. On any other distro, it would not have worked. Now, with a functional version, have the setup in its own Nixfile, permanently hosted on GitHub. Write once, fix never. It’s the Rust of operating systems.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

IT'S THE RUST OF OPERATING SYSTEMS!

@MeshVoid 4 ай бұрын

Just to mention a thing about NixOS having way more packages than aur. Does it "really" have more packages? I am currently using NixOS and what I see is packages for separate fonts, libraries, many packages are poorly structured and don't have lts versions of the same software, so sometimes you can't just declare an older version and more modern version of the same software to be pulled without writing some workarounds. If you have to declaratively point to each separate element from fonts to drivers, libraries, software, then, yes you will end up having more repositories than anything else. I can't say that these packages are very well maintained, sometimes packages have broken links and you have to figure out what to do about it and it's not pleasant.

@jmsp000 5 ай бұрын

Huh, wondering when/if you'd touch on Nix. Half a year ago I decided to learn NixOS (ie. use it as my main partition and just suffer until i figured it out) and simply being able to go back to an older generation when I inevitably screwed something up was extremely pleasant. It's also made cooking up a development environment just that much easier. Keep up the good videos!

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@_Lumiere_ 5 ай бұрын

Do you still use it?

@jmsp000 4 ай бұрын

That I do. @@_Lumiere_

@sharperguy 5 ай бұрын

One of the best things about NixOS is that when something requires a tutorial on Ubuntu on Arch, on nixos it just requires adding some lines to your config. In the tutorial case it can be really easy to lose track of what you did, whereas on nixos the changes sit right alongside everything else on your system. The downside is that since it's a little niche there isn't always any good explanation for how to get something working on nixos in the first place. But at least when you DO figure it out, it's extremely easy to share it with others.

@Tanja42 5 ай бұрын

It really was a matter of time til you made this video 😸 Nice to see it; jumped on the NixOS train myself about two months ago ❄

@edwolt 5 ай бұрын

I started to use NixOS some months ago. And it's really nice that most of the state of my system can be easily read from a file, for example, I was not able to know what packages come with the distro and which I intalled when I was using Manjaro. Also the reproducibility rocks. I could easily setup another computer just by running the rebuild. Also it's really good that I can choose what packages is bleeding edge, which proprietary softwares I accept in my system and have to explicitly allow what insecure/end of life packages I want to install. I wish there were a simple way to disallow some packages to be installed, like not allowing Electron or somethung like that.

@miropaintola 5 ай бұрын

"What Sisyphus sees when turning on his computer" Ah yes, one must imagine an Arch user happy.

@luisliz 5 ай бұрын

I’ve been working on nix this week and you bring out this video. Love it

@nakretkacisnienie 5 ай бұрын

i use arch btw

@jh-devv 5 ай бұрын

I use nix btw

@justsomeonepassingby3838 5 ай бұрын

I use guix btw

@7Dev. 5 ай бұрын

Mee to btw

@happycats-go8sv 5 ай бұрын

I don't use gentoo :(

@Posponger 5 ай бұрын

I use linux from scratch btw (i don't)

@loupax 5 ай бұрын

You won me at 3:40 I always wanted to have all my package definitions in a single file, and always wondered why no distro does that. I use arch btw and I still have no idea which packages I installed to use only once and then forget about it. Time to distrohop I guess.

@draakisback 5 ай бұрын

It's been a joy to watch your videos as a content creator and as a software engineer. You're given me some good ideas for building my tutorials without having to sift through an hour long live code session. If I use markdown like you do, I can do most of what I want and then add animations and audio in editing.

@Synthetica9 5 ай бұрын

1:26 the inflection point was earlier: old NixOS releases receive basically no support, so old packages go "stale" (no longer the latest version, simply due to time passing since the last commit to those releases)

@DaveWarnock 5 ай бұрын

Interesting. I recently returned to Debian from Ubuntu as a full time Linux user since 1998 (almost always without a dual boot). What I missed in your video and then from the NixOs website is anything about the philosophy, whether there is a social contract, how it relates to commercialization. You mention the USB drive option and it would be great to see more detail on how to use a USB build as a way of easing migration rather than a full nuclear option of OS replacement.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

NixOS strikes what I think is a great middle ground between libre and practicality, unlike gnu guix, which is libre only. In the nixos installer, you are presented with a checkbox labelled "Allow unfree software?" it's disabled by default. I want to play games, run music software, and use proprietary drivers, so I checked it. If I were installing on a server, I'd not have to. Purity must always be balanced with practicality, guix has 9k fresh packages, and I simply can't run my life in it. I can with NixOS!

@DaveWarnock 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate I'm not an extremist FSF person, I think Debian has a sane middle ground. Ubuntu is heading in a concerning direction, for me, for example with snap and the snapstore. It looks like NixOs might be a good place for me to help with consistency over a couple of desktops, a couple of laptops and some Raspberry Pi projects. Although I don't want the same packages on all systems (eg Raspberry Pi are either dedicated to boat navigation and instruments or media systems, my wife desktop to office stuff and kdenlive, my 2 systems very multi-purpose including development). I'd already been attracted to nixshell as an alternative to Docker for rust development projects with databases etc (looks like nix develop might be even better). It does look like there is a steep learning curve to getting on top of the current "best practice" eg flakes.

@panosangel2883 5 ай бұрын

Your content, no matter the topic, is a breeze! I'm glad I found your channel, it literally has revolutionized my way of thinking...and acting!

@BryanChance 5 ай бұрын

I like your presentation style. Quite effective, too. LOL I've seen about 5 videos about NixOS in the last 6 months or so. Your video got me downloading NixOS now.. ;-) Thanks mate! EDIT: Nix language is very cool! I had no idea it existed, until i saw this video.

@0thLaw 5 ай бұрын

Here, algorithm, have a comment.

@pengie_ 5 ай бұрын

Havent watched the full video yet but as a NixOS user im so happy you made this video, always love seeing nix get more exposure

@stinkytoby 5 ай бұрын

I take full credit for the quote at 7:38!

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

NOT NOW SON

@stinkytoby 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate>:3

@IsawU 5 ай бұрын

I love the idea of NixOS and I'll probably get into it, but from my gentle QEMU attempts, I had a very hard time even getting the correct desktop to run. Sometimes I'd get to the greeter, but after logging in the screen would just flash and throw me back to the greeter. Sometimes I didn't even get to the greeter. Using it in the terminal was terrific.

@ougonce 5 ай бұрын

I've been using NixOS for 3 or so years at this point, and it's really hard to imagine using anything else at this point. There have been multiple instances of having to replicate my system (either in a different machine, or on the same one after hardware failure) that took me literal minutes, instead of the multiple-hour endeavour that it would be in any other operating system. I always felt like operating systems were extremely brittle and prone to breakage, but it wasn't until I committed to NixOS that I realized the extent of it.

@ougonce 5 ай бұрын

Btw, here's a tip: if you'd like, you can specify in your config file that you'd like your current configuration to be copied to a directory in `/etc`, essentially giving you a way to inspect the configuration that built the currently active derivation at any time. Look into `environment.etc`, and the `.mode` option to make it copy instead of symlink.

@ougonce 5 ай бұрын

Oh also! If you'd like to be even more declarative, I recommend looking into Flakes. That way you don't have to mess with channels, and even they will be declaratively set in a file (as well as any other dependencies your system might have).

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Thank you! Yes flakes and home manager are in my future :D

@notafbihoneypot8487 5 ай бұрын

BoilerOS when?

@neoney 5 ай бұрын

9:05 the thing I recommend to do to also have a rollback of your configurations, is putting the files in your /etc using environment.etc."config/configuration.nix".source = ./config.nix; etc. this means the files are copied to the nix store on build time, and then in /etc/config, you always have the currently-booted config, even if you didn't commit it

@siddharthbisht8522 5 ай бұрын

That does it, I started learning and using rust last year because of you. I was thinking of trying nix and now I think the stars have alligned

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Sorry/notsorry! :-D

@SuperOblivionfan 5 ай бұрын

Nixos killed my distro hopping syndrome. Its the logical conclusion of linux imo

@eksno 5 ай бұрын

I'm always surprised about how likeminded we are in terms of systems in life. You've gotten me on polyphasic, obsidian (switched to vim + github repo but fundamentally same), and also make videos on stuff I'm already using like Linux, Rust, and now surprisingly NixOS which I've been using as my main distro for 5 months now! Nice to have someone where I know every video will be based on the same fundamental ideals I have. (looking at your videos I see you also, like me, have adhd and autism so there's that lol)

@angeldude101 5 ай бұрын

This channel did have a video on ADHD, and I think Rust and NixOS both appeal to me in similar ways that are partly a result of my AutDHD. My autism liked it when things are consistent and predictable anyways, but my ADHD can result in both a desire to move fast and break things, and a poor memory making it hard to remember what I've already done. Neither Nix nor Rust fully allows for moving fast and breaking things, but they do allow me to try ridiculous things when I get the urge to, and will proof read my work to make sure it won't break things too badly, and NixOS in particular let's me just pretend that what I did to break the system never actually happened. And then regarding the memory aspect, both Rust and NixOS are great for collaborating with other people, but that also makes them great for collaborating with yourself across time if you've forgotten enough in the meantime to effectively count as a different person when coming back to a project. (And the OS is certainly a project you won't completely forget about and will keep coming back to.)

@eksno 5 ай бұрын

@@angeldude101 > (And the OS is certainly a project you won't completely forget about and will keep coming back to.) This is one of the exact reasons I got into nixos and actually commited. Where every change I make will be persisted through my life moving forward, the knowledge that, over time, if I use it as my main distro, I'll become as innately familiar with it and know every in-and-out. I can say though I'm not even close to knowing everything about nixos though haha! Just recently discovered the wonder of nix-shell 4 months in so I could remove all my project based dependencies from my main config, and share the reproducable dev environment with my 0 co-workers who also use nixos lol.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

My autism video is coming next month! :-D

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

My autism video is coming next month! :-D

@oglothenerd 5 ай бұрын

I used NixOS, had to stop due to FHS issues, so I use EndeavourOS with a program I made with Rust called Rebos that does repeatability with a config file.

@Tobiky 5 ай бұрын

Thank you, I similarly tried NixOS a while back and the whole nix-env scared me off. This is exactly what I wanted out of nix!

@yungabilify 5 ай бұрын

NixOS is such a neat concept for an operating system, I like the idea of it for servers especially. This is appealing to me because I have in the past made post-install scripts for Arch just to have that type of automation. Might have to give this OS another shot

@sweetbabyalaska 5 ай бұрын

I just started learning Nix and I'm pretty excited to get up and running

@DeuxisWasTaken 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for making this video! I learned about Nix about 2 years ago when searching for an heavily customizeable bleeding edge OS that doesn't have as annoying quirks as Arch or Gentoo, and I'm still mad I only then learned it exists. It's by far the best thing to happen to Linux distros since the invention of package managers.

@abbcc555 5 ай бұрын

@5:50 I felt butterflies in my stomach. I just wish there was an easy way to revert back to Arch when I still find a way to mess it up :)

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

It's impossible to break - isn't that a relief!

@angeldude101 5 ай бұрын

It's not _completely_ impossible to break. It just requires filesystem corruption to achieve, and even then it can still often be salvaged, like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

@myfavouritecolorisgreen 2 ай бұрын

hii, i had tried nixos in the past. but the mirrors used for downloading packages were too slow since they might not be configured for my region. i know how to update my mirrors on arch. i couldn't figure out how to do it on nixos. I'd love some direction regarding this!

@aberroa1955 4 ай бұрын

No boilerplate starts with boilerplate greeting and boilerplate backstory.

@B1adeLegend 5 ай бұрын

Your Linux proverbs always resonate with me - from a general user standpoint, the true power of a Linux distro is the package manager! Everything else is personal.

@Terraspark4941 4 ай бұрын

You sound like if Tom Scott took a lighter coffee today and decided to talk about Linux distros instead of weird places around the globe; and I love it ❄ I wonder how long it may take for NixOS to overtake Arch, with such a large difference in safety and simplicity? Great video, overall!

@diegoasanch 5 ай бұрын

Wake up babe, new No Boilerplate video 🍿

@sleepy-monax 5 ай бұрын

The more package than the AUR point is really debatable since the two distribution count packages differently

@TobiasFrei 5 ай бұрын

Thanks a lot for your inspiring ideas here. And yes, in January I switched all my machines (except for one development workstation on Arch Linux) to NixOS -- using Flakes, using Home Manager. And then this language 🥰 , e.g. # Make use of recursive attribute set rec { # Fibonacci seqence, naive recursive: fib = n: if n < 2 then n else fib (n - 1) + fib (n - 2) ; # powers, recursive with nested functions for currying: pow = b: e: if e == 0 then 1 else pow b (e - 1) * b; }

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

cool!

@sadboisibit 5 ай бұрын

I've been putting off converting my desktop computer from Windows 10 to Linux for the last several months. Watching this (and finally canceling my Adobe subscription) was the push I needed to finally convert.

@colemickens 5 ай бұрын

Wow! Excellent content, amazing voice. It's almost intimidating exciting how many new users NixOS is getting lately!

@i.8530 5 ай бұрын

Just wanted to say thank you for your contributions to nixpkgs! I recognized your name from PRs lol

@Anonymous4045 5 ай бұрын

How is it with servers? I have a home server that I run Debian on, would it make sense to have a configuration.nix for my pc and laptop and another for my server?

@HiAdrian 5 ай бұрын

The way I see it, it makes a lot more sense for servers than desktops. Far fewer packages to install, no tinkering, and the need for reproducibility.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

FANTASTIC for servers!

@amydebuitleir 5 ай бұрын

You can even have a single configuration file that does some custom stuff depending on whether the machine is a desktop, laptop, or server.

@sweglord227 5 ай бұрын

honestly would check it out if i felt like nuking my system. maybe at a later date when i have less things going on. seems very cool and just what im into

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Yeah, it's a great little weekend project. If you have an old spare laptop lying around, do what I did: test out all your apps on there, make sure it seems like it'll do what you want, then just take that configuration file, and put it on your main machine. One rebuild later and you're at the same state as you were on the laptop - WILD!

@vasujain2 5 ай бұрын

Same level of stability and rolling the system back feature can be obtained by using - "arch + btrfs + snapper". That's what I use to never have a broken os. Works like a charm. But yeah NixOS is really great and unique approach to os.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

fs snapshots are not the right level of abstraction for me. snapshots are "files on disk at this time". That's not what I want to model. nixos generations are an exact frozen set of system and user config THAT WORKED TOGETHER. You can have 10 new generations a minute in a busy flurry of configuration, or you could have 1 new generation a year.

@0LoneTech 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate... or didn't work, which is when you needed the rollback, and the reason it didn't work is usually in some state external to your configuration file so you can't replicate the working system by copying the configuration file. I have an apt setup that makes system snapshots after apt finishes making changes. It has downsides, in particular that nix can build and set up the updates without interrupting the current system in a way dpkg doesn't. Merging system and user configuration in one file is also a distinct feature, but it comes at a cost e.g. when I can't get Nix to make vi point to nvim.

@fcriado92 3 ай бұрын

I bought a secondhand laptop mostly to test this out as it looked fun. No regrets, this distro is great! Thanks for the recommendation, I'm sure you brought a lot of newbies to NixOS with this. I expect this style of package manager will become more popular because it makes so much sense.

@NahrAlma 3 ай бұрын

FIIIINE. I will give it another try. Thankfully I was smart enough to save my nix config file from back then. I now feel very smart indeed.

@broikem121 5 ай бұрын

Gracias por hacernos llegar este nuevo tipo de sistema operativo, dado mi escaso tiempo libre diario, no me habría sido posible conocer este contenido sin tu ayuda. Gracias

@conrad586 5 ай бұрын

I love you making a nixos video. I've been using it since half a year but cant get over the steep beginner learning curve, which is alright for using only on my laptop for simpler things like notes and browsing but I'd love to get away from windows in the future.

@MisraPreetiman 5 ай бұрын

Never thought I’d see one of my favourite channels shout out another one of my favourites! So cool to see the recognition Nix and NixOS has been getting as of late thanks to people like Vimjoyer! Love from India ❤

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Welcome!

@Rostgnom 5 ай бұрын

You really deserve this like and subscribe! Great video, I had no idea Linux could be this enjoyable from a dev's perspective!

@Tn5421Me Ай бұрын

7:20 There are two reasons nix-env exists: 1. test a program before including it in your declarative config 2. when using the nix package manager on top of a non-NixOS operating system.

@TheJayman213 5 ай бұрын

While I got into Emacs I never got into WMs. NixOS seems like another one of those things you can spend a lifetime configuring. So for now I'm just trying other immutable distros. Not having packages share any dependencies seems like overkill. You can just keep using a single container for everything until you hit a conflict and add new containers accordingly.

@Muaahaa 5 ай бұрын

Good to have you aboard. Really excited about what 2024 might bring to the NixOS community :D

@siocdenarf1010 5 ай бұрын

Hello! I have always the same trouble with NixOS presentations: What about security updates? Who do the package validations, and security follow up? No dependencies? ok but what about bug fix / security patch on these libraries and softwares you have in many of those "packages"? I am really curious about that and I am surprised it is never explained. For me, security patches / bug fix are as much important as things you said as main advantages of that distro.

@robinkneepkens4970 5 ай бұрын

oh yess, the perfect channel to cover nix/nixos. I've been getting into them recently as well and they feel like such powerful tools to have as a software developer (or anyone who does anything with programming)

@Anonymous4045 5 ай бұрын

Which aspects specifically do you find the most helpful in software development?

@fabiandrinksmilk6205 5 ай бұрын

@@Anonymous4045Nix Shell, you can setup a development environment easily without affecting the rest of your system. You specify what packages or environment variables you want and Nix creates a new shell with those available to you, when you're done you exit the shell and those packages are gone.

@Sestaak 5 ай бұрын

I love how much attention Nix and NixOS have been getting recently. Thanks for putting out the good word!

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Always!

@Chalisque 5 ай бұрын

I had a quick go. The install iso failed to boot on my older Thinkpads. I found it too much hassle trying to figure out how to express stuff in my configuration.nix. Then how to handle things like e.g. Reaper and other software that expects to be installed in /opt, and so on. Eventually I gave up and put Kubuntu 23.10 on, until LTS drops and then I'll update all my machines to that.

@_Lumiere_ 5 ай бұрын

This might just push me to finally try this as my daily driver. I'm just a somewhat beginner CS student though, so it is a bit intimidating. My questions are: how long have you been using it for? How happy are you with it for recreational use? I've heard that people have issues with it not being FHS compliant, though I'm not very familiar with what that means. Have you had any issues with that?

@christopheriman4921 5 ай бұрын

It not being FHS compliant just means that if you were to try and find a config file or a binary where it would be on a standard linux machine that it will likely not be there, and I have heard it causes a few headaches but I so far haven't run into that many problems with it.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

This is correct, though I showed the 2-line fix in the video

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Your first Linux should be Ubuntu. By the time you want to move, you'll know what your second one should be :-)

@_Lumiere_ 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate My first linux was indeed ubuntu 😅. 5 years ago or so. Then I moved to PopOS, then to Manjaro, then to EndeavourOS, and now to trying out Fedora and Linux Mint. I'm no stranger to Linux, but, at the same time, I'm not very confident at using it beyond your typical OS, simple installing, updating etc. I'm comfortable enough to use Arch, as long as I rely on the community and the wiki to troubleshoot things, editing grub configs etc. If an OS requires me to write scripts and the like, that's a bit more than what I'm used to. So I guess I'm just wondering how much more knowledge I'd need to comfortably use NixOS when compared to something like Arch?

@brianlogan4740 Ай бұрын

Man seriously thank you for this video. I've been playing with NixOS but hesitant on really how good of a paradigm it is or if it's just more Linux "self-flagellation". However hearing your familiarity with Rust and your experience is just confirming that I need to commit to it.

@OliNorwell 5 ай бұрын

Well, I'd advise always having an Arch Live USB stick lying around (I have one I made 3 years ago) - then once a year when an update goes bad you can revert to the previous kernel if needed. It automatically has a backup of the previous one.

@OliNorwell 5 ай бұрын

and yes, I use Arch BTW

@pandavova 5 ай бұрын

Never knew about this, man this is pretty cool! Won't switch to Linux as a primary OS, but I'll keep NixOS in mind.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Dual boot! The nixos installer sets it all up for you :D

@pandavova 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate ... maybe? I had bad experiences with Linux Dual Boot and Windows years ago, so I never did it again. Not really in need of Dual Booting into Linux... If anything needs Linux, I try it on a PartedMagic USB stick and that is working out for me. I'm trying to think for what reason I could justify Dual Boot, but I can't find one currently. (I'm also planning to finally reinstall Windows and do Win 10 LTSC instead of normal Win 10. I wonder when I'll get to that...)

@laundmo 5 ай бұрын

@@pandavovaIf you're a Rust dev like many people who watch this channel: compile times. ITS SO MUCH FASTER! like, i was surprised switching from windows to linux for compiling rust projects would be that much faster.

@pandavova 5 ай бұрын

@@laundmo I'm not dev at all so... Yeah...

@WyvernDotRed 5 ай бұрын

The rollback thing can be achieved with BTRFS and Snapper too, like how Garuda Linux pre-configures it on install. This is my current distro of choice, which I tried between switching from Manjaro to EndeavourOS, sticking as I loved it. It's a bit of a pet requiring light but constant maintenance, but works amazingly for me. NixOS is an interesting alternative, for if Garuda Linux ever develops issues too bothersome to fix. Though OpenSUSE also is an interesting option for me, if it wasn't so rough in practice. My server is currently powered by Clear Linux, as it is somewhat reproducible and like Garuda yet auto-updates safely, it just works for me after having tried it on a whim. The centralised config of NixOS seems like a much more polished version of it's Stateless design, though I absolutely will not change a working system there unless the old thing falls apart.

@ToyKeeper 5 ай бұрын

How often do you reboot? How many old snapshots can it boot into? I only reboot like once a year, because it's really disruptive to have to close everything, reboot, then restore my session. A significant amount of state is lost in the process... and with updates, I can count on always having to fix a few things due to upstream changes.

@LadyTink 5 ай бұрын

Literally the only reason I didn't go with NixOS when I setup a new machine recently, was that the people running NixOS were having some managment support structure and expense issues they were talking about recently

@ninjarunner 5 ай бұрын

3:50 If you don't mind me asking, what "arch one"? You either install arch manually from the CLI or use the archinstall script. Or you can use an unofficial install script/iso, but I wouldn't call any of those THE arch installer. Regardless of which you meant, I agree that the nix installer looks better, I just found this statement confusing.

@user-st3yv3to8r 5 ай бұрын

Installed Arch couple of months ago as my first experience with linux. Saw a lot of NixOs content after that, and the main thing that stopped me from trying it is that I keep hearing about not full/incosistent documentation. May be this video will push me to try it

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

the linked vimjoyer's video is really all you need, it's very comprehensive! come ask for help in #linux on my discord if you need it :-D

@Merc399 2 ай бұрын

Ubuntu is linux like Harleys are motorcycles : theyre not. Ubuntu collects telemetry data and is corpo run. nixOS looks interesting from a security and attack vector stand-point

@brainstormsurge154 3 ай бұрын

Just getting into using NixOS after trying Arch and one of the interesting features I've liked is the `nix-shell` command. I don't know the details on how it works but it feels awesome since you can test a package on a separate shell (maybe think of it like docker) and if you don't like the package you can just exit the shell and the package is gone and you don't have to worry about cleaning up any .local or .config files/folders. Again, maybe I'm wrong about the details but it feels really neat.

@sylvanfranklin6904 5 ай бұрын

Awesome video as always! Do you mind if I ask about how the polyphasic sleep is going?

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

No news since the video, I am very glad I did it, but the discipline it taught me has made my biphasic (ie siesta) life really good!

@WakeUp4L1fe 5 ай бұрын

I predict one of the next videos would be about glove 80 keyboard and how it is a superior typing experience for neovim users.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

I'm literally going to a fancy dress party as Kung Fury this week. Be careful what you wish for 😅

@fernandobalieiro 5 ай бұрын

new no boilerplate video, life good

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

Same :-)

@syedahkam7164 4 ай бұрын

Tris, You're awesome and you got me converted to Nix. Loving it so far!

@borisoid 5 ай бұрын

So glad NixOS is getting attention it deserves. I played with in in a VM , read a lot about it and I loved it. I'm using kubuntu with nix home-manager (flake) and I really want to just install NixOS. The only problem I see (apart from being lazy to move my work related stuff to a new system) is that if your team doesn't use Nix - you are screwed. You will need to set up a dev-container or a full VM to develop projects that were set up and configured on and for an FHS system.

@NoBoilerplate 5 ай бұрын

I found the python developer! (joking! this problem happens with many languages) The real solution to your problems is to encourage your team to move to container-based development, that way it'll work across linux/osx/windows AND your nixos machine. "install a bunch of these random dependencies" is not how we should develop software :-D

@borisoid 5 ай бұрын

Wow, you nailed it, I am a python dev 😄 Containers are awesome in 2 ways: - You can be very precise about your app's environment. It works on my machine - it will work on any machine - You don't pollute your system/home with some packages, npm/python global installs, python venvs, configs, caches, etc. I don't understand why I *NEVER* heard anyone having concerns about this. The first time was when I learned this: "Nix exposes to your userspace only the packages you explicitly installed". Nix doesn't save you from all trash files though... Containers do

@TheSuperComputer0 5 ай бұрын

@borisoid I think you'll want to check out nix-shell for your dev environments. Wasn't covered in this video, but it's an excellent alternative to docker containers, fully integrated with your OS. There's also direnv, which can automatically switch to these nix shell environments based on directories. They are relatively small files, any other nixos devs on the team will see you as a Chad, and maybe you'll convert other curious devs.

@doctorbobstone 5 ай бұрын

@@NoBoilerplate I'm curious. When you recommend container-based development, are you imagining web development or other systems where you almost entirely interact with your application through the network or through another program like a web server or similar? I'm an embedded developer and I also do a lot of system programming. When I'm not developing something which uses hardware, I'm probably writing something that I intend to call from the command line, so having binaries which only work inside one special container (or which I have to build multiple times) just never seems to make sense to me. That being said, having containers for CI or so you *can* debug build problems separate from your idiosyncratic system and so on? That's great. I just want portability so that things work inside and out so you can be flexible and use the tools most suited to your situation. So, my curiosity: I'm curious how what I've described jibes with your recommendation to move towards container-based development. Are you trying to get more benefits than I've outlined? Or solving different problems? Or do you basically agree (or disagree) with my position?