Perhaps dumb questions inbound ;)
I use Arch because I’m strapped for time and my system is always moving.
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2 minutes to install something? AUR probably has it.
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Ten minutes of free time to look for a software that fits a new need? Try random AUR things (auditing PKGBUILDs is just twenty seconds or so).
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If I need a tiny patch, I’ll just add a sed or patch file to the PKGBUILD. (Super easy, you barely learn any syntax cuz it’s intuitive shell.)
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make && make install/meson blahblahusually just works. -
Wiki does the thinking for me if I need something special (e.g. hw video acceleration)
Buuuut update surprises can be a pain (e.g. Pipewire explodes Saturday evening) and declarative rollbackable immutability sounds really freakin’ AWESOME, so I’m considering NixOS for my new laptop (old one’s webcam broke). So I ask:
- How much can I grok in a week?
- I need to know Nixlang, right? I have a ton of dotfiles and random homemade cpp commands in ~/.local/bin that I use daily
- How quick is it to make a derivation?
- I
make installa lot, do I need to declare that due to non-FHS? Can I boilerplate the whole thing with someone else’smake installand ctrl+c ctrl+v? How does genAI fare? (Lemmy hates word guess bots, I know)
- I
- How quick is it to install something new and random?
- Do I just use
nix-shellif I need something asap? Do I need to make a derivation for all my programs? e.g. do I need to declare a Hyprland plugin I’m test-running?
- Do I just use
- How long do you research a new package for?
- On Gentoo I always looked up USE flags (NOO my time); on Arch I just audit the PKGBUILD and test-run it (20 seconds); on Ubuntu I had to find the relevant PPA (2 minutes). What’s it like for Nix?
- Can you set up dev environments quickly or do you need to write a ton of configs?
- I hear python can be annoying. Do C++/Android Studio have header file/etc. issues?
- What maintenance ouchies do you run into? How long to rectify?
- Do I need to finagle on my own to have /boot encrypted?
- I boot via: unencrypted EFI grub asks for LUKS password -> decrypt /boot, which then has a keyfile -> decrypt and mount btrfs root partition. But lots of guides don’t do it this way
Thanks for bearing with me ദ്ദി(｡•̀ヮ<)~✩‧₊
I’d say I’m a “time-strapped” user since I have a full time job and I’d rather spend my free time gaming rather than fixing a broken OS, nevertheless… I have 2 PCs with Arch Linux (one for personal stuff and one for work) and a server with NixOS.
When things break on Arch (which is rare these days but it can happen, especially if you play around with things from the AUR), I just rollback with timeshift (it takes just a few seconds with btrfs) and try that update again in a few days. Minor issues I can just ignore or work around them and take care of them when I feel like it, but they usually get fixed with updates within a few days. The only time I felt that it was actively wasting my time was when Plasma 6 came out a few months ago and a lot of little things broke, especially on wayland, but they were fixed rather quickly with 6.1 so I can’t complain too much.
NixOS on the other end has been nothing but trouble and a waste of time ever since I installed it. It took me a week to configure it, some packages are kinda old, most have incomplete declarative config, I had to manually write some units myself, and when things break it drives me crazy because even basic troubleshooting of services can be a pain in the ass because I have to find out where stuff is, know which config files are going to be overwritten, launch the correct nix-shell, … it’s all so tiresome… so I just revert to an older config and hope for the best. To make things worse, major updates often require manual changes to the config or even to application files themselves (looking at you, nextcloud) and you will excuse me if I can’t be bothered to do that on a DECLARATIVE DISTRO. Even debian doesn’t need that, come on! I don’t care what people say on NixOS, this OS is not ready yet, I don’t have time for this removed when I’m working and that server will be going back to debian next summer.
I like the idea behind it, but I’m with you. I’ve tried to learn it and given up several times. There’s just not enough tutorial info, yet, to get people up to speed, and making changes seems to be a bigger deal than pretty much every other distro out there.
Its current state feels like Arch for people who think Arch is too easy.
Fair
I don’t think that will solve the “some packages are kinda old” issue.