NixOS needs what is IMO the killer feature of Arch: the wiki.
Comprehensive documentation on not only the OS but the additional packages that we use is what drew me to Arch, and the thing that makes me swear in frustration whenever I have to use Ubuntu/Debian.
NixOS is an excellent OS that has the promise of being every bit as hackable as Arch, but far more stable. Problem is, configuration is very different and needs extensive documentation to reduce that friction point.
The Arch wiki is pretty distro-agnostic (barring package names and pacman specific stuff). I’ve been distro-hopping for past decade and I’ve always used it as a reference for setting things up.
It’s distro-agnostic because Arch does very little to modify packages when they’re put in the repos, which means they’ll line up with the packages own man page & readme. The issue comes when opinionated distros modify things like command syntax, etc file locations and default behaviour.
If NixOS is similarly unopinionated, it’d only really have to document its own system layer, but my point is that Arch being guaranteed to reflect a well documented system is what drew me to it.
The way in which NixOS works in regards to packaging, locations of config files and others makes it very opinionated imo. You have to do it the nix way and trying the “normal” way doesn’t work in most cases.
NixOS needs what is IMO the killer feature of Arch: the wiki.
NixOS has a killer feature which obviates a wiki for most such purposes: NixOS options. They document themselves!
You don’t need to look up a wiki on how to install and enable i.e. paperless and all the other services it depends on, you simply set services.paperless.enable and NixOS configures everything for you internally.
The option tells you roughly what it does internally and the other options provide pointers for things you might want to tweak about it. The services.paperless.extraConfig option for example tells you how to configure it (pointing to upstream documentation in this case) and even gives an example on what you might want to do.
Another example is how to install Steam. In Arch, the wiki must tell you all the manual steps required to enable multilib, install the steam package, install 32bit dependencies, yada yada.
In NixOS, you simply set programs.steam.enable = true;. Off to your games.
You wanna customise the Steam package to add additional flags, pass env vars or add additional packages your weird Linux-native indie game needs? programs.steam.package tells you how to do that right in the place where you do it.
While you’re looking for steam, you might also come across hardware.steam-hardware.enable which you need to set in order to make your Valve Index and Steam Controller work properly.
You wanna start Steam in a gamescope session right from the display-manager? programs.steam.gamescopeSession does it for you. No need to copy paste some snippet that you’ll instantly forget about and maybe breaks in a few months. programs.steam.gamescopeSession is maintained upstream by NixOS, so if it breaks, someone will go and fix that and nobody needs to adjust any of their copy-pasta because they’ll just update as they always do and it just starts working again.
None of this is perfect yet and the quality of documentation of NixOS options really varies but I think you get the idea here. I already rarely look at the NixOS wiki to configure my system because the system configuration tells me what I need to do already and this will only get better as options get refined.
the promise of being every bit as hackable as Arch
I don’t think it makes that promise and I don’t think it’s true.
NixOS is about doing things “properly”; applying software engineering to software environment management.
Whipping up a quick hack is much more complicated and time intensive on NixOS than doing so on Arch because it’s way more abstract. You can’t just quickly replace some binary with your own compiled one, you need to use NixOS’ systems to wire in the binary and build it with Nix to begin with.
Maintaining a system (even one with terrible hacks) is much simpler in NixOS however.
You’re underrepresenting the complications of NixOS and overrepresenting the complications of Arch. For example, to install Steam I would run sudo pacman -Syu steam. On a typical Arch setup that’s all that’s needed.
Another example is how to install Steam. In Arch, the wiki must tell you all the manual steps required to enable multilib, install the steam package, install 32bit dependencies, yada yada.
And that’s why the Arch wiki is so great - it has details and links about everything that goes into making something work. If you want to learn more or if something goes wrong it’s all right there.
But yes, I think you hit the nail on the head at the end there - hackability is Arch’s strength, everything is exposed and flexible to tinkering. It’s easy to make almost anything work, and easy to learn how it works. That’s very different from NixOS’s core philosophy of stability and reproducibility.
There are inherent pros and cons to both approaches - it really comes down to a mix of personal preference and using the right tool for the right job. They’re apples and oranges, and the article framing NixOS as a superior successor to Arch is as silly as the reverse would be.
For example, to install Steam I would run
sudo pacman -Syu steam. On a typical Arch setup that’s all that’s needed.
That is incorrect to my knowledge. Back when I used Arch, you still needed to enable multilib which I don’t think has changed. You need a wiki entry to tell you how to do that.
AFAIK you also need to manually install yourself a Vulkan driver. I’ve recently helped a person who had opted for AMDVLK here and it broke in one game but was working fine in others.
That sort of thing doesn’t really happen with NixOS because enabling desktop support implies the presence of a Vulkan driver and we provide a sane one by default (currently RADV via mesa or nvidia when you enable proprietary drivers).
NixOS options. They document themselves!
Didn’t read past that as you clearly don’t understand what the differences between documentation, a tutorial and code comments are.
Do read past that and you might understand why NixOS options are a type of documentation. They’re not “code comments”.
I installed NixOS on a laptop and tried to run a steam game and it just straight up didn’t launch anything, went to the wiki to figure out the amd drivers, opengl whatever put like 10 new lines in my nix config rebuilt restarted still nothing works, after about 2 hours i just swapped back to arch and the games launched straight away, so for me it wasnt as easy as you may claim it to be. I also tried it on my desktop before and it was a better experience, but still not great. The nix config file is a bit of a mess of options that you have to dig into wiki pages and searching stuff to figure out how to get some stuff to work
If you’re on AMD, all you have to do is programs.steam.enable = true;. Not dozens of lines copied from some wiki. I should know because that’s all I do in my config to enable Steam on my AMD system: https://github.com/Atemu/nixos-config/blob/450bf3710c77818436f1459e3ea36bf087b6e56b/configs/HEPHAISTOS/default.nix#L16 (L17-L29 are optional customisation).
What may or may not work is doing everything programs.steam.enable does internally yourself like some outdated wiki entry might suggest you to do. Given you claim to have been manually configuring opengl stuff for instance, there’s a good chance that’s what you did. You do not have to touch any opengl settings or put steam into environment.systemPackages.
The entire point of NixOS modules is that we have the capability to abstract stuff like this so that you do not have to copy pasta dozens of lines from a possibly outdated unofficial wiki but can simply set one option.
Having options is not the same thing as documenting those options; well outlined documentation doesn’t just dictate how to do something but also points out what you may want to do i.e. filling out unknown-unknowns.
Just because NixOS makes for an excellent DevOps template doesn’t mean it can’t also be an excellent platform for hacking together random crap. I understand that NixOS advertises itself as the former, but when I say “promises to be” I don’t mean “makes a promise to be”, but “has promise for being”.
Features like: a common configuration interface, safe rollback, atomic changes, nixos-hardware all are features that enable developers to safely hack together solutions, and then have an excellent log detailing what they just did.
Having options is not the same thing as documenting those options; well outlined documentation doesn’t just dictate how to do something but also points out what you may want to do i.e. filling out unknown-unknowns.
Agreed. The point is however that, with NixOS options, you do not necessarily need such documentation for unknown-knowns.
With many things however, we can simply delegate to the upstream documentation for some thing. See i.e. the paperless extra config example. We don’t need to tell users how to configure their paperless, we just tell them that any upstream option goes into this settings option as an attrset.
NixOS options do to a degree fill out unknown-unknowns though, see I.e. the steam-hardware example. I’ve stumbled upon many handy options by searching for related options.
Just because NixOS makes for an excellent DevOps template doesn’t mean it can’t also be an excellent platform for hacking together random crap.
While the initial “hacking the crap together” phase is indeed harder in most cases, maintaining these hacks is much simpler thanks to overrides/overlays and the additive nature of NixOS options.
That quality can arguably make it “excellent” too.
Fully agreed- I experimented with it around November of last year and absolutely love the idea of it, but the documentation just isn’t there. At the time I found nothing explaining flakes in a clear and concise manner so I had no idea how to use them or add them into my configs. People online kept saying to port the rest of my configuration to flakes but all of the examples online were complex and there was no simple example to build off of. I ended up settling for Universal Blue since it just uses OCI containers and I don’t need a PhD to have a pseudo-declarative environment in it, but would love to revisit NixOS if the documentation ever gets better.
Yeah true, whenever I have problems with some packages like Wayland and its alternative Xorg tools or games, its Arch wiki that helps extremely to fix or understand the situation. Its like many experiences are combined and written in a simple language everyone can easily understand.
On Ubuntu for example, everything feels like its hardcoded, not the standard and its just not even documented. And the wiki has minimal info about the packages.
The Nix package manager got ported to OpenBSD, so that part of NixOS must be excellent.
I’m surprised, and really pleased; I was under the impression that Nix required Systemd, and was thus a Linux exclusive. Good to see
Nix (the package manager) does not depend on systemd in any capacity; just like apt, apk or Pacman do not depend on systemd.
NixOS currently uses systemd and cannot be ported without major restructuring. So far the enthusiasm to do that has been very limited. InitWare may be the path forward but that project seems to have stalled.
Note that NixOS also does not support any kernel other than Linux either.
Note that, while the Nix package manager can technically run on OpenBSD to some capacity, that doesn’t mean packages in Nixpkgs are compatible with OpenBSD.
I can’t comment on the current situation from first-hand experience but I can say that there is no support guarantee as there is for Linux and macOS and that there is no binary cache either. You have to build everything yourself and I’m not even sure we can build even basic packages such as hello on BSDs yet.
OpenBSD has no intention of trying to use Nix packages, my point was that the Nix package manager has useful enough features and functonality that it was ported to OpenBSD to use for managing OpenBSD software and packages.
That’s what porting does, it’s making a program fully functional on a different operating system or different hardware architecture. Compatibility serves a different purpose from porting.
I’m new to NixOS, just installed it a few days ago, so I can’t say much about it’s pros and cons, but the installer was easy and I installed and booted into the new system very quickly. I think it might have been udpated in the past year, because I am watching a tutorial video from a year ago and he installs it via command line from the live iso.
edit: it also gave me a default configuration.nix which I’ve just been adding to (to get nginx with letsencrypt running, plus extra packages I wanted installed)
Is it just me or do large portions of this article feel AI-generated?
The fake excitement sounds like a YouTube influencer acting, but maybe it’s AI. Either way it’s crap.
I feel like I could ask ChatGPT to “write a fairy tale about Nix” to get the exact same article.
I was curious what this would be like. Here you go:
Once upon a time, in the enchanting land of Softwareia, there existed a magnificent kingdom called NixOS. It was a land filled with wondrous programs, magical packages, and a unique way of managing its realm.
In the heart of NixOS, there lived a wise and benevolent ruler named King Nix. He possessed a deep understanding of the mystical arts of software configuration and believed in the power of declarative system management. King Nix had a vision of creating a stable and reproducible kingdom where every program and package would live harmoniously.
Under King Nix’s rule, NixOS flourished. The kingdom’s castle, named “/etc/nixos,” stood tall and proud, housing all the secrets to its magical configuration. Inside its walls, the King’s trusted advisors, known as the “Nixpkgs,” tirelessly crafted packages and spells to ensure the smooth operation of the entire kingdom.
But NixOS faced a great challenge. An evil sorcerer named Dependencyus wreaked havoc on neighboring kingdoms by casting wicked spells of dependency conflicts and chaos. Determined to protect NixOS from this malevolent force, King Nix summoned his bravest knight, Sir Hydra.
Sir Hydra was a mighty warrior, blessed with the power to build and manage an army of software packages. With his magical powers, he could conquer any dependency conflict and ensure that every program in NixOS lived in perfect harmony. Equipped with his trusty sword, “nix-build,” and an unyielding determination, Sir Hydra set out on a grand quest to rid the land of Dependencyus’s dark influence.
As Sir Hydra ventured through the enchanted forests and crossed treacherous rivers, he encountered various creatures that sought to thwart his mission. But with the wisdom of King Nix and the support of the Nixpkgs, Sir Hydra defeated every challenge. He assembled an army of packages, each ready to battle the forces of chaos and maintain order in the kingdom.
With each successful conquest, Sir Hydra’s reputation grew, and soon his name echoed throughout NixOS. Other kingdoms heard of his exploits and marveled at the stability and reproducibility of NixOS. The news spread far and wide, and developers from distant lands sought to learn the ways of NixOS and harness its power.
In the end, Sir Hydra confronted Dependencyus himself. With a swift stroke of his sword, Sir Hydra shattered the sorcerer’s spell of confusion and brought peace to the kingdom. Dependencyus, realizing the strength and resilience of NixOS, abandoned his wicked ways and pledged to help maintain the harmony of software in the realm.
NixOS prospered, and its fame spread across the entire land of Softwareia. King Nix and Sir Hydra became revered figures, their names etched in the annals of software history. Developers from all corners of the world flocked to NixOS, drawn by its elegance, reliability, and enchanting ways.
And so, the fairy tale of NixOS became a legend passed down through generations. It taught the importance of declarative system management, the power of reproducibility, and the magic of a kingdom united under the visionary rule of King Nix and the valiant knight, Sir Hydra.
Fun fact: I use NixOS since six years now and at least in the first two years the Arch Wiki helped me a lot to understand the NixOS configuration options.
That’s the main crux with NixOS, it does a lot of stuff in the background for you that in my opinion you should know why it’s being done the way it is. As such I consider Arch a good distro for a beginner who wants to learn the inner workings of Linux, while NixOS is a better-engineered distribution that takes care of the system for you. Arch’s goal is to be simple for the maintainers which means it’s very close to what one might consider a “standard Linux”, and its wiki is mostly a documentation of exactly that.
I use Nix btw.
I use Nix btw
I use a reproducible, declarative and reliable system btw.
I also use flakes btw.
What are flakes? I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the various NixOS features like flakes for a while, and I still don’t understand what is the purpose of flakes?
Here’s a (hopefully) simple breakdown on flakes:
While Nix is typically called a “package manager”, I recommend thinking of it more like a build system.
And flakes are like blueprints to feed into that build system.
A flake can contain a number “outputs” that can be build, this can be a package, a system configuration, a module for a system configuration, a development environment and much more.
But be aware that nix is very picky and will only accept flakes if it can (typically) guarantee that it will always build the same thing, on every platform, at any time.
That’s why you have to specify external “inputs” like system libraries, git repos or files, if you want to use these within your flake.
After running your flake for the first time, nix will generate a flake.lock file for you. This file contains all used “inputs”, pinned to the specific version/hash used, so that builds in the future will be executed on exactly the same inputs.
And while we’re at it, I should explain something: A flake is a directory, containing a “flake.nix” file, not the file itself. Since other aspects are also part of the “flake” you build, like the lockfile or version control system (if a VCS exists, the flake will only see files that are tracked by it).
This makes flakes very powerful, since they allow nix to be used in a very modular manner.
Here’s an example: If you’d want nix to build and run a little fetcher I’ve written, you could just type:
nix run sourcehut:~sntx/nx-fetch
(c.f. https://git.sr.ht/~sntx/nx-fetch )
This would make nix fetch the flake from sourcehut, build all “inputs” (these are typically prebuild and pulled from cache.nixos.org), compile the rust-code that is within the flake, add the output package to the local /nix/store and run it.
Edit 1: Fixed typo
