NixOS Is A Fascinating Linux Distribution

NixOS is a GNU/Linux distribution that employs a powerful package management system that allows you to build the system from a single configuration file. NixOS supports atomic upgrades and rolling back to previous generations. In theory, it should be an unbreakable system.

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[gryzor]

The reason why you can use sudo without a password is explained in the manual: "The nixos user account has an empty password so you can use sudo without a password."

[sluxi]

I've been using it for a long time and really love NixOS, I think it brings the idea of configuration management to the OS level.

[Bikdashing]

Hey DT, just wanted to say thanks for reviewing NixOS. I never seen and used it. I will definitely get to know by this .

[tonnylins]

Man, thank you for getting into the woods of nixos. I saw this distro a few years back and even downloaded the iso and opened into a VM but I didn't go any further. I found its engineering very promising way back when. Well, I settled with arch for my machines for now, but seeing the awesomeness of nix package manager, it has triggered once again the interest on nixos.

[zoltantoth]

NixOS is the best. Not only functional is the future of operating systems, but the distro is already mature enough mostly for practical use on the desktop. I have been using it for a while and it became my least problematic Linux desktop distro so far, which is good enough from a mature distro, let alone from a revolutionarily new one.

[i.]

Hey DT, you made a comment about not being able to recompile your suckless utilities and as a NixOS & suckless user i would like to clarify that you can pretty easily do that, you just need to specify the patches you want to use using an override of the (for example) st package. Here is a code snippet for using basic regular patches:

"nixpkgs.config.st.patches = [ /path/to/diff.patch ];"

here is an example from my personal config, the lazy persons build of st.

"""
= pkgs: {
st = (pkgs.st.overrideAttrs (attrs: {
pname = "luke-st";
version = "unstable-2020-08-07";
src = pkgs.fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "LukeSmithxyz";
repo = "st";
rev =
sha256 =
};
buildInputs = attrs.buildInputs ++ [ pkgs.harfbuzz ];
}));
};
"""

Hope this helped!

[caldersheagren]

You should do a video on nixos packaging!

[ethanedwards]

I'm actually installing NixOS right now! Good timing :)

[reisen]

Another cool thing about Nix is the "nix-shell" command.
It's trivial to test packages with it, you just need:

$ nix-shell -p <package>
For example:
$ nix-shell -p firefox --run firefox

and you will have Firefox in a temporary environment (it can be garbage-collected later).
Also, this isn't something exclusive to NixOS, it works on any GNU/Linux distro or macOS that has the Nix package manager installed.

[MonsterHunterDignity]

Hey DT, would greatly appreciate more NixOS content, since there is not much on YouTube about it so far. I think NixOS is the closest thing that comes to a true revolution in operating systems in the last decades.

[wilfridtaylor]

Been using nixos for about a month now. So far pretty happy with it :).

[caseyhoward]

Good video. I wanted to point out though that the "stateVersion" isn't "what point it is building from". It's actually more about the data that isn't part of nix. The kinds of things that are not recoverable and a rollback can't fix. It's pretty much a warning to back up anything with state like databases. There are many services that support many database versions, but you want to make sure to back up your data before they update.

[-ej]

how have you not hit 100k yet? your content is so much better than many of the much larger channels

[bba_]

A part two would be great this was really interesting!

[alonzoc]

If you don't wanna have to install everything systemwide you can use home-manager which allows you to configure your users environment individually. Reduces the total system bloat on a reinstall as the core system is made as small as possible. It also means you don't need to use sudo every time for adding new programs.

[iansterling]

Thank you for this video. I'd been wanting to try nixos and have been intimidated by the config file. To that point, I'd tried in a VM before and was unable to boot, and your explanation of this got me past that.

[enderger]

Actually, NixOS has a system to emulate the standard filesystem structure through symlinks. It should be able to use most standard executables.

[death-disco]

Wow. I remember your last NixOS video. You skipped through it, said it was hard to install, seemed to not understand anything about its benefits or why it is set up so differently. I love your videos but that one made me lose a little bit of respect for your review process I guess (though I am biased; nix user here). It’s interesting to watch this turnaround. Well done! By the way, the process for this is the exact same as last release (with plasma), but you said the last one was overly difficult. I think perhaps your understanding of what it is trying to do has changed over time. I actually NEVER use this process. I either install from another operating system (which you can totally do) if there’s one on there, or I build my own iso with a simple .nix script.

[twb]

DAAAAMN I can even "setxkbmap -option caps:swapescape" from that config, should give NixOS a try

[halturin]

If you got 'Command not found' just run 'command-not-found <your_cmd>'. very useful to find a package provides this command