NixOS

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NixOS is a Linux distribution built on top of the Nix package manager. Its declarative configuration allows reliable system upgrades via several official channels of stability and size.

This community discusses NixOS, Nix, and everything related.

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Getting started with NixOS - looking for tutorials (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I heard a lot about the concepts of nix and NixOS and I'd love to try it.

After installing the VirtualBox demo, I keep getting stuck with every tiny step I take, though.

So I was wondering if there are any tutorials for beginners that you can recommend?

I couldn't find anything on the internet - everything that looks like a tutorial presumes a lot of things everybody seems to know about nix, so no need to explain those.

Where can I find those explanations to make the first baby steps with NixOS?

To put it in other words: Where is NixOS for dummies?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I know what you mean - the problem with this approach is that things might work, but I am using it not in the way it's intended, because I didn't understand the underlying concepts.. But I cannot search for concepts of which I don't know they exist...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

but I am using it not in the way it's intended

This is absolutely intended. Nix is a programming language, package manager, and operating system.

Nix the package manager is intended to be used on nixos and non-nixos operating systems. It has first party support for Darwin (macOS).

My nixos build is not daily driver ready, so I'm still on Ubuntu for my productivity systems. The majority of the Ubuntu apps I use are managed via nix using home manager at this point. These share the same configurations with my nixos systems.

It is relatively low risk* since nix installs everything in /nix/store and sets up some env vars and user systemd services with symlinks to map to there. If I install Firefox with nix, the Ubuntu version is still there untouched. My PATH just hits nix first before the system. You have to change like one file if I'm remembering correctly after uninstalling if you want to back out which is the trigger for a nix package to come before a native package.

If you dip into declarative app configs (zsh, fish, nvim, etc.) you can absolutely lose the original. I tracked all that in a dotfiles repo before nix personally. Just have backups and start small.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

That sounds like something I should try, too.

Currently I'm using Linux Mint and I also have a dotfiles repo, so that sounds quite similar to your case.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

lol true, i read a comment that explained it as " nix is for people who need to install different apps all the time, especially programmers who need to test with every different lybrary etc, or people who need to have their system writen in a config file, to deploy it to others computers etc" so for me this isn't viable, i only use nix for a few packages that i want to keep up to day, or packages that fedora don't have, that's way i went with fedora atomic and nix, a stable system but without needing the entire nixOS