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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Is anyone using NixOS as their daily driver? (ymmel.nl)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm currently running Arch and it's great, but I'm noticing I'm not staying on the ball in regards to updates. I've been reading a bit about Nix and NixOS and thinking of trying it as my daily driver. I've got a Lenovo x1 xtreme laptop, I don't do much gaming (except OSRS), use firefox, jetbrains stuff, bitwarden, remmina, obsidian, and docker.

Is anyone running NixOS as their daily? How are you liking it and are there any pitfalls / stuff you wish you knew before?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm using NixOS, and I have a few tips:

Use flakes
If it ain't working, steam-run it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Daily driving it myself but have yet to really use flakes. What's the benefit of them?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They're more reproducible, they make dependency management easier, the commands you use with them are easier to use and more readable, and it's easier to have multiple packages/systems/home-manager profiles in a single git repo. They also make version management easier

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I've heard of the advantages of using them but still not entirely sure what they're actually used for? What situation would call for using a flake?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

For distributing software (nixpkgs is a flake and many projects have flakes), replacing channels (again, nixpkgs is a flake) or managing configs (check out my repo)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So the only use of flakes is for packaging software? Haven't started packaging software for NixOS yet only managing my PC

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No, it's also for your system to use locked versions of deps, so if you git clone you get a flakes.lock as well with all the versions. When you install from a git repo you get the same system again

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So it's a way to ensure you always get the exact same version of dependencies?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yes, you get the same version of deps and the actual software too. For example, wine breaks my game from time to time, but if I got clone my setup I will get the exact version of wine that I use that works, not the latest unstable version