NixOS : The HYPE is Real ! Everything You NEED to Know (NEW!)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
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NixOS main configuration file location:
/etc/NixOS/configuration.nix
Install packages on NixOS without root:
nix-env -ia nixos.package_name
Replace package_name with the name of the package you want to install.
Uninstall packages:
nix-env --uninstall package_name
Download NixOS:
nixos.org/
NixOS is trending. Literally everybody is talking about NixOS. So what’s up with all the hype?
Now NixOS is not a new Linux distro, in fact It's a 20 year old Linux distro, But it did release a new version recently and the internet is going crazy. So I started my research and I’m left impressed and facinated by what I found out.
NixOS is not your typical Linux distribution, based on another linux distro with a reskinned desktop. Nope, It would be a huge understatement if I said NixOS is different. NixOS has a very innovative and unique approach to everything. I really hadn't seen anything like it.
I was really curious So went in for a deep dive with NixOS. I've been playing around with NixOS for the last fortnight and it has left me thrilled with literally everything.
NixOS takes a different approach to how we see operating systems and with this, NixOS breaks away from traditional operating system paradigms, offering a whole new level of control, adaptability and user experience. Really, I'm excited to take you on this journey with me and this cutting edge distro.
Before we get anywhere near this distro, It's important that we understand what is NixOS.
He said NixOS 95 times! About 5 times per minute 😅
NixOS NixOS NixOS NixOS NixOS!!!!
Ai generated script
@@adityay525125 Most probably 😁
At 0:38 he also uses the word "fortnight", so he seems pretty excited about NixOS.
I forgot the name of the OS... can you repeat it one last time, please?
If you will install NixOS on a UEFI system, just make sure to create a large EFI partition because there is where NixOS stores the Linux kernels of all generations OR you will have to reduce the number of generations in configuration.nix (configurationLimit) in order to prevent running out of disk space that will block any future updates. Mine is 537MB so I have set the generation number to 3.
I normally make it 1 GiB just in case, so I guess I should be fine. I would even make 2 just for Nix so I'm sure I'm running on plenty of space.
Is a 1024 MiB EFI partition enough?
Ok, as I just checked, I maybe was a little exaggerating by setting 3 updates for 537MB. Overall each Linux kernel and initrd take 19M and 8.3M respectively. So, If you don't have any other systems, you could probably fit 18 updates in a half GB. Sorry for the misinformation 😏.
@@GALONE7how close is NixOs to the hardware
@@univera1111 Sorry, I can't answer your question because youtube keeps deleting my answer for some reason 😮💨.
I write, and I have two laptops I use. I don't know how many times I've experimented with distros and wished there was a good way to duplicate the setup on one laptop, on the other. All the endless tweaking gets so tiresome, especially when you try ~50 different distros! Nix's install duplication as you described it is an amazing godsend. I wish all distros did this!
This is a great video because it's moved me to really check this distro out. If you're not in advertising or sales in your work life, you need to be.
Yeahh, it looked like a sales video, not enough tech details... I got bored and couldn't watch to the end, sorry.
I can highly recommend a flake-based setup with all of your machines in it, and home-manager inside as well, referencing common settings in the same nix included files. It's a bit upfront time invest, but you never have to do the same tweak again, and all improvements are just one "rebuild switch" away on all machines.
The hype is real until intermediate users try to do anything not explicitly defined in their docs. I’ve been testing Nix for a bit now. This OS is great for very basic needs of a newbie or alternatively advanced power users. Part of the hype is due to reviewers only focusing on the good things.
Thank you for this-what sort of drawbacks would you identify? I admit, it seems intriguing.
You mean in the 3 different types of documentation, the options page on the site which lists most things you can declare, and the sources themselves.
In openbsd you can save packages list to a file and import it on fresh install too...
I mean, you have a fair point, nix configuration files are not simply a .conf or yaml/json file, it's truly a turing complete programming language, to take advantage of Nix/NixOS benefits it's necessary to learn it's language and package manager.
Also, documentation is not so straightforward as should be and tooling could be much more improved, flakes is a good improvement.
Part of the difficulty of NixOS is due to a change in paradigm, the same thing happens in programming with the functional style of coding, so it's necessary to interact with your system in a declarative way (instead of imperatively giving commands to your OS).
I yet to see an alternative to Nix and NixOS which is more simpler and friendlier, without the complexity and over engineering of Nix.
That said, the Nix ecosystem is great and provides many benefits for all kinds of user, however sysadmins will be more into it than normal users, because of it's steep learning curve
For anyone wanting to learn more about in a easy way I recommend Nix from first principles from Tony Finn
What is this distro called?
NixOS. I can see how you missed the name. The video didn't say it enough times. TH-camrs are so lazy these days
Nah, I think he said NicksOS. It's a distro for basketball fans.
I've been using it since 2017 and it's mostly been a good experience! The main challenge is the learning curve for it's unique way of doing things.
Nice video focusing mostly on the important topics. I'm starting to think (based on the wave of videos coming out recently), that we should start recommending flake based setups though. It might be a tiny bit more complex for first setup, but it avoids the whole channel mess and local config dirs, which is a huge boon that starts paying off pretty much 10 minutes after initial install, and is much easier for subsequent machines... (Yes, they are still called "experimental", but for real world usage they're already more stable and starting to be better documented than legacy setups).
Have any documentation where I can do this myself? You seem to know what your talking about :)
@@JEnciso I haven't tried myself, but I think recently zero-to-nix would the way to go, since their mission is to make onboarding easier. The people at DeterminateSystems include the original author and many top Gurus of Nix(OS) and they have gone "pure flakes" since some time. Another good source of flake-based system configs is Misterio77's nix-starter-configs. (I can't seem to link, so just search for the names given)
We can be the knights of Nix.
[for fans of Monty Python]
Ni ni ni ni ni
For any linux to go mainstream, devs communities should put more effort on porting windows apps to linux. Most people don't really care about the OS, they just want things to work. Software they use are available in that OS and working as it should.
Else, most computer users will just use Windows and Macs, those curious enough will install linux but not using it, some will become distro hopper, and only very2 small number will become user.
Unfortunately, it is the software companies that need to support the OS, not the other way around.
@@justaviewperse8013 It's been 32 years, we still hoping the software companies to support the OS? What reason do they have? With miniscule number of linux users.
Simply look at the gaming scene, it definitely started with the communities.
@@finhas8865 Agreed. something has to give. I know of Windows and iOS users who would definitely give Linux a go if there were more software support from these Vendors.
Are we to just keep chanting Windows or iOS for the rest of the foreseeable future? That would be such a dismal environment.
Linux doesn't need to be mainstream, and I don't want any company's shitty proprietary apps if they don't care to port them. You can get anything you need done using only FOSS.
@@RegularTetragon Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but.....
openKylin, China's new "mainstream" OS, as they prepare to dump Windows is based on Ubuntu Linux. So the possibility is certainly there.
To believe iOS and Windows will continue to be the only Operating Systems for mainstream use forever, well, is quiet short sighted.
Bitwig Studio for instance, is a mainstream Digital Audio Workstation program, designed for Music Production that officially supports iOS, Windows and Linux.
What one may consider as "Sh**** proprietary apps" may well be the icing on the cake for other Linux users. Having said that, I don't see why a mainstream Linux distribution would need to come pre-installed with such application's. Just the ability to install a much wider spectrum of Applications and Driver's would suffice.
We can't get everything done using FOSS. There is software out there, that are quiet complex and full of certain features that some users can not do without, and there is no sufficient alternative for Linux.
Just my pov.
I've been using nixos for almost a year now, it's the best distro i've ever tried but it's really hard to understand how it works at first. I suggest going slowly for anyone who's willing to try it. It's a rabbit hole 😅
Yes! People need to slowly migrate and not jump in head first. I hope more people migrate from Fedora and RHEL based distros to Nix.
@@psi4j true
@@psi4j That's what I will do! I'm a Fedora user
How close is nix os to the hardware
@@psi4jand can it run wine or bottles. Or win11 in quemu
Awesome stuff, Tex!
I've been seeing lot of Nix lately
I don't like the uncritical enthusiasm, but the video gives me a good first impression. Thanks for that! Personally, though, I'd be happier to see videos that briefly(!) tell you what NixOS can do and then help you overcome the obvious problems and challenges you seem to quickly run into. Not everything in NixOS is great when you hear and read testimonials and certainly not easy to understand and manage. There seems to be a lack of guideslines and hands-on documentation.
For me, it's similar to my text editor that I've used for 25 years: When I give an introduction to someone who has never used the (Neo)Vi(m) editor and so far only knows VS code and IDEs, I show him the essential features that distinguish (Neo)Vi(m) and make it so powerful (modal editing for example), but I also point out at the same time the steep learning curve, how the doc system works (no website!), how to debug error messages and configuration problems in the best way (this has never been easy - a single syntax error is enough and nothing works anymore). NixOS seems very similar to me: High learning curve and not intuitive even for advanced new users who want to transfer their gained experience and solution patterns and use cases to Nix and NixOS.
Therefore: The hype may be real, but the video is just unfortunately not "all I need to know". But very entertaining, thanks for that again.
Yeah, looking for a video like that! Not enough tech details. All the vids are just hype for beginners, I'd like to learn more about pros and cons.
the video screams of hype :/
Great video. Thank you for bringing us these awesome reviews.
If each App can use different versions of files, and they are downloaded and kept in separate folders for each App. Does this mean that NixOS is Storage heavy? That would require quite a large HDD as the base drive if you use lots of Apps. Unless, can you define for the Apps to be installed on a second Data type drive if you want?
From what I understand so far about Nix, is still is able to identify shared dependencies to help keep storage down, and you can also "clean" up older config states when you're ready. But overall yes, I do believe it could get drive intensive if you're gonna have multiple versions of a bunch of applications
Nix works by downloading the different versions (only the ones needed) and symlinking to them. So if two apps use the same version of the software, both get links to the same binary. More space is only used if apps have differing versions of the same dependencies.
TLDR: Probably technically yes, but not much, since only few versions are actually used.
Slightly, but this is pretty much how Windows and mac works, when you download an exe it contains all the versions of the libraries it needs, so you don't get dependency conflicts. But there it's arguably worse because you will get duplicate dependencies, where as Nix shares dependencies if 2 packages use the same version.
Yeah. NixOS uses way more storage than other normal distros because of maintaining older generations and transient packages. But in other side you can build a GCP image with cuda and nvidia drivers and fit in a 10GB rootfs VPS. You will only need to rebuild the VPS image when updating, for example, to avoid wasting space.
Yes nixos do accumulate storage space over time, especially when you always update your config. However nix does come with built in garbage collector to free up space of unused files, that is very easy to use
That AI that produces the commentary saying NixOS so often was developed on NixOS with use of the NixOS language and the NixOS dev tools. And the NixOS AI is also capable of commenting NixOS video clips on TH-cam.
Yesterday I was walking, and I heard 2 girls talking about NixOS..... when I approached to yell "I use fedora btw"........ they started twerking over a laptop running gentoo.
If I understand what you mean by the dependency setup, then that's EXACTLY what I was thinking of when I was talking with the bloat in Flatpak and Snaps. Instead of having a new copy of the same dependency in every single app package that uses it, a central collection of vetted, verified, secure dependencies could be addressed as needed. I suppose that's how a non-containerized works anyway, except for the level of security verification not being that great. But I'm not a coder, what do I know.
I'm running Linux Mint, but I'm definitely going to do some research on Nix.
AFAIK snaps and flatpaks already do shared libraries, but they don't look for them in the installed system or between each other, so you end with a snap copy, a flat copy and a system copy, what nixos seems to be doing differently is 1) taking the compartmentalized approach and applying it at system level with the option to go user level. and 2) forcing all packages to require specific versions so you don't end with the python2 situations where packages declared "python2.x or higher" stopped working when some features were deprecated in python3
I am also currently using Linux Mint, however, instead of snaps or flatpaks, I install nix (the package manager on which nixos is based) and use nix instead of those. It perfectly complements stuff that is missing from apt, such as the Brave and LibreWolf browsers.
Sadly it is not about security but code sharing. The problem is that it is very difficult to maintain ABI/API stability in new versions of libraries. It is feasible obviously, but not easy. And the bloat adds up. If you are Glibc, then you can justify the bloat introduced by the "symbol versioning" solution. After all every cat and dog uses Glibc ( on Linux obviously ), so it is practically mandatory to share the library. But for libraries that don't get shared by many programs, it is better to statically link them. The gotcha is that programmers have the habit of entering into flame wars and take political stances of development matters, so you have programmers that want everything statically linked and programmers that want everything dynamically linked. A good balance is needed, otherwise we end up with Flatpak and Snaps and multi-gigabyte "dependencies".
You are the first person I have heard talk about NixOS ever.
Yes
2023 linux distro hype...
Ubuntu → Linux mint → Arch → Fedora → Debian 12 → Nix OS
Ubuntu is still the best for common user.
*I use Fedora BTW
@@serangNow that the new installer will hopefully not break as often (had to go into gparted to manually format the drive to be able to install it two times already), it's probably the best option for non-superusers.
@@Aras14 Iast time tried ubuntu lts (22.04) and it felt quite slow (due to snaps), then I switched to Mint cinnamon and it just works. (Only downside of mint is that it looks outdated & extension support is lacking)
@@serang if ubuntu had a snap free version then I would blindly suggest it to new users, I still think mint cinnamon is best for new users
.
for some reason, both OpenSUSE (immediately) and Fedora (after few days) has some reboot freeze issues on my laptop.
Otherwise I would have stayed on Fedora.
*I use debian 12 btw
@@webflyer035 yeah snaps are shit (I don't know why they wanna die on that hill)
Currently getting up to speed with NixOS on my Proxmox instance, and I gotta say it's a refreshing change from the others so far!
I'm quickly noticing the lack of documentation outside of the official docs on the website and wiki. Otherwise, I love living inside these guys' Haskell-inspired dream!
Learn the language really well and learn all of the components and everything will come together for you and you won't feel you need help. I've realized that's why you don't see people talking about how certain things are installed, it's because people eventually figure out that learning the language and the OS's organization is all you need to know to fully customize the OS.
Same here!, trying new things and tooling provided by the Nix ecosystem such as Disko and impermanence modules in my proxmox
I love proxmox but It would be so good to use NixOS as a type-1 hypervisor instead, imagine declaring your VMs and LXCs using Nix
We have terraform for proxmox tho
Which is easier: opening and editing a file with a software name for installation or simply typing apt install in shell ?? Not to mention dependencies, config files and even gpg keys installations.
You say this because you never needed to sync your non trivial stuff with a few machines. You can define and modularize stuff with nix so there would be stuff specific for one machine and for all machines.
I don't know why there is a need to question something like this, just because you don't use it? About dependencies, nix does that all for you, and I prefer nix way to be honest.. it is much cleaner.. have you tried uninstall a DE and install another on any distro? Like from gnome to KDE.. for nixos, you only need to change one line (or 2 of you want to change the DM too).
@@poof3d oh yeah, this is very overpowered and already saved my lazy ass
@@poof3d configuration.nix package build isn't thorough with optional dependencies and that's a pure fact! Fine, I acknowledge the reproducibility of its so called generations feature but that's just it. Aside the difference in user profiles, nix-env makes much more sense in package management, but since yall don't mind editing configuration.nix before running nixos-rebuild, enjoy the pain
@@skysoft501 Using nix-env and editing configuration.nix are complementary, not mutually exclusive. The value in the latter is that you can do things like check configuration.nix into source control, or copy it over to another machine and reproduce the exact same system. More on that: you can parameterize the configuration.nix, so you can have a near-identical system across different hardware, where the only differences are hardware specific (e.g. nvidia drivers vs amd for graphics), or configuring a different hostname, etc.
Now speaking of services: on Ubuntu, for comparison, I can `sudo apt install nginx` and have nginx installed and running under systemd. Now how do I configure nginx? I can poke at config files, whether manually, or running `sed`, or appending a line or two, etc. The thing *I* don't like about that is that this involves operations on system state that are *not* commutative. For instance, if I modify some software's config file by firing up a terminal and appending a "enable = true" to the end, and *then* I run `sed` to replace "true" with "false", I don't get the same results if I do those two steps in reverse (these operations are non-commutative) -- the file will contain "enable = true" when what I wanted was "enable = false". This non-commutativity means that it is non-trivial to create a list of command line invocations that guarantee that the system configuration converges upon the desired state. Tools like Chef/Puppet/etc work *really* hard to try and make sense of the current system state, look at the desired state, take the delta, and then apply modifications to config files/installed packages/etc *in-place*. This onerous and error prone approach goes away entirely if you can just declare "this is what I want the system state to be" and skip the clever analysis and in-place editing of existing configuration files.
That's what NixOS's configuration.nix approach gives you: regardless of current system state, you are *guaranteed* to have the software and services and configuration settings that you specify, at precisely the versions specified. You can `nixos-rebuild` from this file on one machine, and do the same on another, and arrive at *exactly* the same system state -- there is no "well, it worked on my machine" scenario that can occur. That's the kind of guarantee you want when you are deploying your system -- whether locally (new laptop, or recovering from broken SSD, etc), or remotely.
However, you and me (as well as pretty much every other seasoned nix user) are in agreement that something else is more appropriate for quickly playing around with a new dev tool or other software. Sometimes that means using `nix-env` to install something into your user's profile. Sometimes that means using `nix shell` to get a temporary shell with some software packages available (like ruby, npm, whatever), allowing Nix to garbage collect those packages after you exit that shell. It's not uncommon to find something like a `flake.nix` file in a software's version control repo, the idea being that this single file describes all of the dependencies you need to hack on that software, and then you can run a command to drop into a shell that provides has all of those deps/tools installed -- and all of that can be done without `sudo` or editing `configuration.nix`.
Like anything else in the world of software, it's a matter of using the right tool for the job. Both approaches have their uses and strengths.
Hi! This is an awesome video, you summarized it really well and it's quite a good help. I think i'm missing something. Let's say you wil install 10 applications that depend on the same library, SDL as an example, does that mean SDL will be installed 10 times, one for each application? I gave a library as an example but it could be any other tipe of package.
Yes, correct. The library will be installed 10 times. Although it is redundant, dealing with this repeatition is not the priority here.
@@LinuxTex Thank you for the answer. I see, i guess that's the trade-off. There's always one.
@@ruirosado6289 actually, there will only be 10 instances of SDL if all of the packages use different versions
If they all use the same version, then it will only be downloaded once
But quite often, different packages require different versions
Thanks for the info 🎉
Any time brother, Hope you enjoyed the video :)
Is there a KDE version of this distro with all the KDE inbuild softwares 🤔
@@binodmalaka4508yes, you just set the boolean variahle in a conf.nix for plasma5, you can hotswap from all DEs like this, gnome, xfce, i3, plasma, etc
@@binodmalaka4508 it also doesn't break anything, the DEs don't cross-pollinate or cause any issues with shared apps
Don't think I'd do too well in the course--- I don't retain code stuff very well. I'm OLD- and have ONE eye now- so hate looking at TEXT on a screen-- aND I don't get all the little letter combo comands etc.. I can barely do arch without a cheat sheet listing what i need to type in...
I've curated the course for simplicity. It's very beginner friendly and it's also for non coders. The course can be finished within a matter of hours (but I don't recommend it. 15 mins daily). And I don't overload my students with commands, rather I make the concepts familiar and let the users go ahead from there. And you're not old Sir. You're magnificently experienced. Wiser. Smarter and mature. I'm looking forward to getting there 😊 Checkout my course and if you don't feel like you've got value. Text me and I'll do a refund, no questions asked. Have a great day Sir.
You know what, you don't need to use NixOS. Use whatever you feel comfortable with, like maybe Fedora or Debian. This is what Linux is all about, choice and preference.
@@fabiandrinksmilk6205 I've been using Debian.. can't stand Fedora- too slow and clunky and cartoony for me.. I DO like the sound of NIX-- I think I could do it.. Just have to use my separate drive and go slow- make sure of what I'm doing- once it's set up- should pretty well STAY set up.. Like my Debian., but maybe better.
The second to last wallpaper was the best 💙
What happens when the program or app you want is not nix packaged?
Do they have a way to manage that or make your own packages easily?
flatpaks are possible
i wouldn't call it hard though it depends what you're packaging if you're just running make with a configure script then you can simply specify the build dependencies & tell Nix to fetch the source from git or wherever if you want a newer version of something you can recycle the same build file(nix expression) & just override the source or perhaps dependencies if required you don't have to modify the expression in the file where it's written you can override it from an overlay this can be done in configuration.nix
@@genericgamer1319 sounds reasonable.
The other point is how often does this happens, which will greatly depend on each person's use case.
I will probably give it a try soon
@@joseluisvazquez5126 a lot of things are kept up to date by bots i think
It's apparently comparable in size and ease to the AUR, you will probably not need to make your own nixpkg and even if you have to it's not prohibitively hard.
Pretty cool and interesting stuff, will definitely try. The way packages are managed and we can make copies of the same just using a single file is very unique and highly convenient. Containerising applications, and managing development environments seems like the core part of this OS which is so exciting for a developer.
Besides being a Linux enthusiast I never heard of this OS. 🤷
This seems quite interesting, but way above my comprehension!
Your system will have default program settings though (which are stored in the home folder). You'll need some form of roaming profile setup for that.
what a bummer, does that happen when changing generations?
Let's not forget about GNU Guix!
It may be younger and smaller, but it's not just a re-implementation of Nix.
On the surface the big difference is, it uses an existing declarative programming language (Scheme). However, having all the insight from Nix's evolution it manages to be significantly cleaner, easier to grasp and have way less technical debt. It even elegantly solves problems Nix is yet to tackle - like eliminating binary 'bootstrap seeds', so that we can ensure our compilers don't come with malware inside.
Guix is cool but basically impossible to market to normal users because normal users depend on proprietary software.
Nix allows proprietary software in nixpkgs but they dont cache hit in the official binary cache and those packages are behind a feature flag (enableUnfree).
@@lucasew [uhh, YT deleted my reply and I no longer have it in the clipboard]
@@mskiptr yeet
@@lucasew BTW your first reply doesn't show up for me by default and I didn't get a notification for it. I can see it only after I sort comments by 'newest'.
youtubr have a soft censorship, they make you believe you post the emsaage and also show it to you, bu it doesnt shows it to anyone else.
i wish android os worked like this imagine every time you got a new phone it just loaded the config file from the cloud and boom everything duplicated...
I have it installed on a testing thinkpad but it's not what I'd slam on all my systems instantly. The declarative approach is nice and makes certain things easier even from a pragmatic POV, like it being robust snd easy to recover, but on the other hands there are so many things you just have to do differently. I'll definitely experiment more with it. But on my main Systems I'm happy with arch and pop OS.
So NixOS is essentially macOS Unix distribution.
didn't mention nix-shell, another big feature of nixos
The biggest IMO
Only downside IMO is that nix3 shell doesn't behave the same.
Every day I thank God I'm not epileptic 🙏🙏
wow i heard NixOS was good but i didnt know it was this crazy! i will definitely be installing this 😊
And have you installed it?
instead of learning another configuration system, you can just run ansible on any linux machine (but Gentoo probably)
Can't this be a big security problem? an attacker only needs to manipulate this one file.
Learning the Config File - is about as easy as finding a pirates map and actually finding the treasure ..... Good Luck with that. Additionally - the hype is coming from programmers or podcasters who are pushing the distro and increasing their subscribers and increasing their algorithm on TH-cam. Hype is Hype. Stick with BACKBONE MAIN distros.
As a NixOS user, I'm glad there's hype around it. Unfortunately the ecosystem isn't really great for new users to dive into and really do whatever they want. We are stuck between the old system and the new system (flakes), where the new system has been the standard way for a while but not officially ready yet.
In it's current state, you have to be ready to dive into the nixpkgs source code if you really want to understand what's going on as docs are way behind.
Also I haven't really seen any of these intro videos really give a decent explanation of the system, probably because it takes more investment to understand than they would be willing to put in a TH-cam video.
That being said, NixOS allows for fearless system tinkering as you can pretty much always rollback.
...and there you go... The lack of documentation will put this in the closet with the rest of the offshoot Linux distros. It's a great idea, but not necessarily unique. I can currently take a hard drive with Linux-Mint loaded onto it, and clone it with Clonezilla, to just about any machine out there that's less than 10 years old, and it will boot and run like it should. The kernel adjusts to the new hardware automatically, plus Linux-Mint is one of the most comfortable and STABLE distros I have used yet. Plus it's a fork of a major distribution (Ubuntu or Debian, depending on which flavor you choose)😉 No hype.. it just works!
most cases new linux os look so cool but printing features are not talked about thus ignored yet configuring your printer is quite a tag of war and at times never work at all.
I really want to give this a go I have already switched from windows 11 to Garuda Linux and I love it no more windows update crashes !!!!😮😮
NixOS is a very old distro. Some in the comments seem to think it's new. No, it's actually older than Ubuntu.
Also, it's a GODD thing that we have more and more distros. That way we'll have somewhere to go once Canonical and SUSE go behind a paywall. The more the merrier.
And no, if there were a single distro we wouldn't all be collaborating to make it perfect. Each one of us has our own idea of what perfection is. We'd fight a lot more, and if all Linux distros got consolidated in a single one, the company behind it would turn it into another MacOS eventually: no longer free, no longer open source.
See RedHat for a warning.
Great take. We are already collaborating on the important things that benefit all distros. Look at the current development on color managerment, HDR and VVR, the work on the Wayland display server and universal packaging formats like Flatpak and AppImage. The division is on the more creative side that relies more on preference, like desktop environment customization and release schedules.
I will try nixos to have look and feel. But I dont have any reason to learn a new programming language to use an OS , there are already many important/useful things to learn. One would learn a new programming language to us OS only if existing distros/OSs are terrible, but that is not the case.
I've been searching for the best Linux distro for years. My name is Nick. My PC's name is Nix PC. This is going to be my OS.
Alternate title for video: Docker minus "Docker (100% compatible)*"
As grumpy as I am, this is a pretty neat development. 'grats release folk
*with all of the current headaches and downsides of docker containers, plus some bonus ones.
Although it _sounds_ cool - simply adding or removing a program from a text file list and then it gets automatically installed/uninstalled is just begging for someone to hack into your system and override it before you can even react. Honestly sounds like a security nightmare, since it doesn't bother asking for permissions or even alerting you to the fact changes are being made. AND it copies essentially the entire OS install to a new file every single time you install or remove something - that sounds like it'll fill up a drive pretty quickly if you forget to keep deleting older versions.
The system configuration file is only editable by root and new generations can only be activated as root. The file and package store are readable by anyone, and it is actually possible to build a new NixOS generation without root, but it won't be able to actually add it to the list of generations and would just make it sit there in the store where it can't really do much beyond launching individual applications, which can be done as an unprivileged user anyways.
TLDR: You still need root in order to actually change the system, but NixOS lets you do a lot more than most package managers without changing the system.
Yeah, someone is trying to find reasons to dislike NixOS.
What is new? It is the old way of building Unix systems, they only combined all system and app configuration files in one big file.
Nice video bro. By the way its Gnome or looks like 1. They're all the same. Ive been distro hopping but i still go back to windows.
the only thing you have said is really everyone is talking about it and you are thrilled. say something to make the video worth everyones time...
Do you know the "chhhhh" sound vampires make when exposed to sunlight ? .. that's me being exposed to gnome3 ^^ Nix for me :D
I tried Nix. It really is a cool OS. The only issue is trying to port over your previous configurations to Nix. Bash files are a nightmare because you have to learn the Nix language and kinda wrap all your bash scripts into that language. Not to mention, for pentesting, Nix just isn't there yet. Idk. I'll keep a watch on it for sure. But there were too many things I wanted to do that wasn't going to work due to the fact that it's not debian.
if bash doesnt run natively on the OS whats the point?
@@iamrobot396 Exactly my thoughts. I've concluded that it's fantastic for general use and being able to essentially CTRL+C/CTRL+V your OS. But since it simply can't do what I need, I switched back to debian.
Nix os is not just nix os. Nix os is a brand. Nix os is the man of the smart people. The people of nix os are very smart. I love nix os
The lack of documentation will put this in the closet with the rest of the offshoot Linux distros. It's a great idea, but not necessarily unique. I can currently take a hard drive with Linux-Mint loaded onto it, and clone it with Clonezilla, to just about any machine out there that's less than 10 years old, and it will boot and run like it should. The kernel adjusts to the new hardware automatically, plus Linux-Mint is one of the most comfortable and STABLE distros I have used yet. Also, it's a fork of a major distribution (Ubuntu or Debian, depending on which flavor you choose)😉 No hype, no surprises.. it just works!
like Zorin. I throw it on anything and it works
Wow I never imagined this day would be so close, a "stateful operating system as code"
With a lot of Chromebooks nearing end of support, this may be worth looking into for school districts that don't want to waste their otherwise perfectly good Chromebooks.
If the Chromebooks are on arm, this won't work
@@KisameSempai I believe there are a variety of distros with ARM branches.
Not everybody... Im not. My friends are not.. My coworkers are not. Sooo... Not everybody.
This sounds like a paid advertisment.
The only dealbreaker i have with NixOS, and GUIX for that matter, is the fact that it is dual boot unfriendly. The only way to boot those systems is if they are the OS with the bootloader and everyone else are booted by it. And at this point this is impossible on my system.
i am dual booting nixos and windows just fine. i can boot into windows from grub where all the nixos generations are listed aswell
# Bootloader.
boot.loader = {
efi = {
canTouchEfiVariables = true;
efiSysMountPoint = "/boot/efi"; # ← use the same mount point here.
};
grub = {
enable = true;
useOSProber = true;
efiSupport = true;
#efiInstallAsRemovable = true; # in case canTouchEfiVariables doesn't work for your system
device = "nodev";
};
My approach, on a uEFI system (as most are these days): I have an EFI boot entry for Windows, another for Ubuntu, and yet another for NixOS. When I power-on, I can choose any of the EFI boot loaders from my laptop/desktop firmware's UI. Additionally, I add the other OSes as entries in my NixOS grub config, so if I space out for a moment during power-on, it's trivial to chain-load into the other bootloaders for the other OSes from my grub menu.
And I'll add to my last comment regarding EFI boot entries: I didn't perform any arcane wizardry to get these boot entries, as all of the aforementioned OSes set these up upon installation. The entries are "just there", and it "just works".
Now, there's no guaranteeing that your computer's implementation of EFI isn't horrible: it *might* not present those entries to you when you boot, making those entries kinda pointless. Regardless, the OSes configure them, and regardless of whether you get a menu, they *are* there. Can't get around the fact that some motherboard manufacturers use crap firmware hardcoded to specifically boot from EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi.
Linux Tex = first name Internet, last name everybody.
I saw nothing of the internet going crazy or „literally“ everybody talking about this OS. This is the first and only video.
Only if he said NixOS an additional 5,345,326 times more.
You are the best Sir in Linux Explainer.
Best of luck.
i wont be persuaded to use an operating system because how simple the OS codes is etc. i just want to use a windows replacement that is SECURE and WORKS thats all.
How secure is this OS? Is the ability to replicate the entire system with 1 tiny file not a vulnerability which makes it easier for bad actors to copy all data by exfiltrating a tiny file?
Maybe this depends on how you use it. As I am learning Nix and NixOS, I am using it to manage only the software installed on my machine, as opposed to users' dotfiles. However, some users have been using a thing called Home Manager, which uses the Nix language to manage dotfiles. Currently I prefer to keep on using chezmoi for these.
But the answer also depends on what you consider "all data". I have lots of data, projects, emails, text files etc. which are the real important thing. Whether or not Postgres is installed in my system... isn't really important.
If someone gets root access they can see everything in a system, it matters very little whether or not there is a recipe for installation.
Generations seem very similar to Windows' System Restore Points from 15 years ago.
i'm a contributor, really a nice project, i kinda wonder how it compares to guix which i haven't tried yet.
I don't see what's so special about this os. Everything that is "special" about this os can be easily reproduced in any other Linux os.
Despite I not wanting it, it does look pretty nice. I actually hope it does well. I have some questions as to where it gets its packages from and how the submission for the packages gets vetted. I dont see the point of snapshots, maybe the snapshot could be just one file? 😅
Best to save the generation file in a local and remote git repo
Thank you very much for providing us the overview on NixOS. Please do a detailed video on installation of NixOS for the benefit of all
What’s the name of this distro again? 🤔
Had to give up on it. Couldn't get things installed. Even watched a YT video and observed exactly what to type in/commands which worked for them but not for me, and would show something completely different on their end to what i saw. But for me it would fail.
Was a bit ago since i tried it but i believe Endeavour OS gave similar trouble so i may have misstook which one was worse/it happened mostly on. But both were failed experiments the last time i tried them otherwise i would have kept an install of either one around.
The problem is that some of these gurus seem to miss steps to set up things for the newbies so it can work with doing further stuff.
NixOS has a GUI installer now, so it might be a lot easier now for you...
@@adjbutler HOW hard is it to use? I"m basically new to CLI stuff-- with Debian and Arch a little bit- but don't retain all the code stuff too well..
@@davidwayne9982With the GUI installer you don't need to use the CLI. Though, if you are uncomfortable with the CLI, I don't recommend NixOS unless you like learning by throwing yourself in, as almost all configuration is in the /etc/nixos/configuration.nix file.
@@davidwayne9982 With the GUI installer, it is really easy to start, but then learning it more, it can get very hard. Once you get into Nix Flakes with both NixOS configurations and Home manager and you start doing stuff like overlays and custom packages, it can get frustrating and the docs won't always help you. My experience with NixOS has been harder on my previous Arch Linux installations and Artix Linux with runit. That is mostly because I like learning these things and I am making things hard for myself as I want my exact setup with a window manager and many programs with dotfiiles to all be reproducible. You can probably get away with just using the GUI installer and edit the configuration.nix using simple editor like Gedit or Kate with the basic stuff you need like some services, your main apps and enabling Flatpak and then do the rest as your user like changing your app configurations and settings.
Can we get a video where it doubles the speed everytime he says NixOS?😂😂
Your map zoomed into Jersey City... I'm in Greenville. How close is Nix OS to being your daily driver?
im an American who is a native English speaker and I have some issues understanding you at times. That said I love your videos as you explain in clearly defined specs and facts about the different Operating Systems. Thank you for this.
For me as a German, the name of that OS sounds funny, the German word "nix" is an abbreviation and stands for "nothing", "niente", "nada", "zilch". So, at the first glance, the name sounds like "NothingOS" to me.
Same for me as a Dutchie. Niks OS 😂
Yes but I still don’t get the package manager os hype.
If it’s so good, why did the date that had focus on the calendar not change when you selected different weeks?
garuda downloads dependencies by default
I'm a big fan of Arch and Arch-based distros. I decided to give NixOS a few weeks back and I have to say I love it. Thanks for the video!
Stop talking to people man, we don't care if our favorite program, game, etc. is not supported. It's the same as it does not exist. You should talk to developers to implement their programs and games so that OS can have a point to exist. I mean, I do like how it's works and how it's look, but what can I do with it if my program doesn't work?
The app system is neat. I don't see why all major distros still think that after all this time, that gui is desirable by everyone. I've literally hated it since Ubuntu 11. I'm shocked that it's lasted this long. If Nix doesn't integrate with classic Gnome (or "Mate") then it simply won't be an efficient work flow for me.
so putting all your eggs in 1 basket seems. makes failure easy also if a bad sector happens in that file
Is there a CLI only environment (server only)?
Can it be PXE booted off the network?
Can a NixOS repository be mirrored locally?
Are there CVE Errata alerting for the packages?
If all these are available, that would be fantastic for the Enterprise!
I never tried booting in PXE, those security advisories you will see in packages like Python 2. At first they tried a fork maintained only for security then just marked it as insecure.
Other stuff is yes.
Nixpkgs is just a git repo, if you don't trust the binary caches you can build your own (it will be painful but possible, stuff is bootstrapable).
BTW there are automatic vulnerability checkers like vulnix.
And nixos, if you don't enable a desktop environment is CLI only.
@@lucasew thanks for all the answers! As part of some of the requirements for Enterprise Linux offerings, those are some of the essential services. I'll investigate these. And if needed, perhaps I can build some of these for Nix...
I use PopOS and I'm generally happy with it, but I may have to try this out at some point. It's just hard trying to relearn everything. I'm also not sure if a lot of what I currently run would actually work on Nix
Nixos disadvantages?
-Learn an entire new language of different paradigm to actually use it and leverage it
-can't directly use Linux binaries
-documentation
Do they offer LIVE ENVIROMENT TO TEST before installing- like other distros???
Yes there are both Gnome and KDE live environment isos available.
Excellent. This definitely piqued my interest.
@@syedumairali4345 WHERE? I saw the KDE and was going to download it- but it doesn't say LIVE..
@@davidwayne9982The individual download buttons don't say live, but the description above states that they're all live. The KDE iso should suit your needs.
It looks well polished
It seems I might have to make my first distro hop in over 14 years
Each "distro" and "file" I bled a bit. I'm on the ER now
God damn it, i just forgot the OS name...
What if I want to install a package that is not present in the repo? For example, a git package that is available in AUR?
I got it to break slightly it still ran just without the Desktop it happens if you install the wrong nvidia driver.
Sounds like containers with extra steps
NixOS the most confusing distro ever. I just don't get it. I tried it in virtual machine few times.
For now I will stick with Fedora Silverblue. I feel like my system runs on Autopilot.
I had a go, but found it too awkward to reproduce my regular Kubuntu setup.
FYI before anyone decides to use this try it in a vm first i installed it on hardware waydroid does not work at the moment no idea why i followed the barely documented instructions in the settings app and this is on the release it is not a beta but i guess expecting a distro made by a literal child to actually work the way it is supposed to is false
I mean changing that .nix file can also risk breaking things, so have to use the OS with precautions
In conclusion, this distro is for advanced user .
Linux is not for beginners like myself, I can't even get this to boot properly from my old laptop