Hey all, thought this might be of interest to some here.

Wrote about why I moved from NixOS to Ubuntu after using it for several months on my daily driver. Suspect that this take is likely to be kind of controversial and court claims of skill issues, which might even be true.

Let me know what you think.

  • Deckweiss@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    tldr:

    • fucking with configs for hours regularly
    • pip & venv doesn’t work on nixos
    • DE broke when installed new DM
    • not much community support
    • mortalic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      5 months ago

      I didn’t realize pip and venv didn’t work… that’s a pretty big deal breaker for a lot of people, myself included.

      • frozencow@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        pip and venv are working, but packages that require compiling or ship binaries by itself usually won’t work out of the box. They depend on gcc or libopenssl to be globally available: the whole gist of Nix not doing 😅

        I’ve found devenv.sh to be most convenient way to handle such projects. You can define the dependencies for a project. It has explicit python/venv/requirements.txt/poetry support. It works for NixOS, but also other distros and MacOS. Very convenient to share and lock development tools and libraries across a team.

      • Faresh@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        5 months ago

        I’m not a Nix user, but doesn’t Nix make both pip and venv obsolete in a way? Nix is a package manager (which could be used to package anything including Python packages/modules) and also allows you to create environments that include only certain packages of certain versions.

        • fd93@programming.devOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          Sounds good in theory, until you want to install scikit-image or other Python libraries which need complex builds.

          • Corbin@programming.dev
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            5 months ago

            python3Packages.scikit-image appears to be available and non-broken in nixpkgs; on my machine, I get /nix/store/w8681ncsw92cn4gq6gyraw4z19r0r6c3-python3.11-scikit-image-0.21.0. Do you have an actual example?

            I understand your point, but given nixpkgs’ position in the community, it might be a moot point.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      fucking with configs for hours regularly

      this is the one reason i dont board the hype train for “customizable” distros: arch, nix, gentoo and so on unless im specifically looking to learn.

      i use linux so i can install it and forget which distro im actually using.

    • fd93@programming.devOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Debian really doesn’t like installing different versions of GUI libraries & their dependencies.

      I really like Pantheon Files.

      • Successful_Try543@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        I know, I’ve once messed around to install a newer QT framework which was required by some package I’ve downloaded directly. Did you install them from the repos or manually copied the files into place? At first I thought the issues were due to compiling source code, not installing conflicting libraries.

        • fd93@programming.devOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          I actually can’t remember as it would have been 6+ months ago now. The issue is probably fixed already by the Debian maintainers / Elementary Team / both.

          Likely something with Meson build / apt not playing nicely.

    • XTL@sopuli.xyz
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      5 months ago

      I have actually done that once. Somehow managed to make install glibc over libc5 or something like that.

      That was a while ago, though.

  • dyc3@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    Damn I was considering switching to Nix because I was annoyed at fl studio and various other kinda niche stuff breaking all the time. This has made me seriously reconsider.

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    5 months ago

    Makes sense. NixOS isn’t for everybody and that’s fine.

    For people like me who don’t change things on the regular, it’s fine. But using the latest and greatest or having to customise stuff is really a drag. Getting a new electron app on nixpkgs can take a long time because doing it yourself is pain. It’s easier to hope somebody else will deal with that pain.

    Have fun on Ubuntu.

    Anti Commercial-AI license

  • eveninghere@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    5 months ago

    While many of the issues with Debian can be resolved by compiling from source, this has been one of the main causes of system failure for me in the past. It also requires equal or greater effort than playing with Nixfiles.

    I guess you are doing something wrong here. I can’t imagine that compiling stuff on Debian would be trickier than tinkering with NixOS.

    Maybe you have been following advices on the web instead of taking the time to understand problems and keep your Debian tidy?

    Besides, between an expert niche like NixOS and the popular Ubuntu, there are more than a dozen OSes you can consider when it comes to preferences on maintenance. You don’t have to consider so many, but a blog article on your particular three / four (NixOS, Debian Ubuntu + Mint) looks a bit off.

    • fd93@programming.devOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      I’ve tried Arch and others as well, even stuff like Slackware, Bodhi, Void, but I’d say that my preference has generally moved away from doing tinkering / maintenance at all other than for fun or profit. I’d still consider Nix for a server / workstation setup but just not as a daily driver.

      • Kangie@lemmy.srcfiles.zip
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        5 months ago

        I may be a touch biased, but I feel like you might enjoy trying Gentoo one day, especially with the recent official binary package host.

        • fd93@programming.devOP
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          5 months ago

          I keep meaning to try Gentoo out but haven’t gotten round to it. I think it didn’t like VirtualBox or something?

  • IndustryStandard@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    More serious than this is the rare occasions Nix packages conflict with each other. While Nix separates dependencies, it doesn’t separate them as absolutely as a full container system like Docker. Therefore it is possible, albeit unlikely, to end up with conflicts between versions of installed libraries.

    Never tried it but thanks for dispelling the hype. What a meme OS.