this post was submitted on 06 May 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Why even use debian at that point?
Half of all of my packages are from nix unstable, but the system itself is still debian stable. That means I've got the bleeding edge user packages, but my system always boots. Casuals can use flatpak instead.
The only downside is for bleeding edge hardware, but again, why use debian at that point.
Because I've been using an apt-get based distro since the late 90's, Because I work in IT, Because I don't like rice/hours of config/features. Yawning chasm of difference between always boots and always boots and dive right into work/game/browsing/whatev's
Can you explain more about your workflow? Do the Nix packages have their own isolated dependency resolution? How does it work when Debian packages depend on a library you get from Nix, or vice-versa?
Here's an example. The main difference to my current setup is that I'm installing nixGL through nix-channels because then I don't have to use --impure that way, although I still haven't gotten around to automating its usage so that might still change.
Basically I just have list of packages that I want installed (home.nix), and I run updates a couple of times a week. If something breaks (it hasn't yet), I could just roll back to a previous generation.
Each package has specified dependencies, nix downloads them separately and then symlinks them in order for the package to access it. If two packages require the same version of the dependency, based on the hash of the output, they'll each get a symlink of the same dependency. If they require different versions, it will download the correct ones for each of the packages.
That way you're theoretically never get mismatched dependencies, but it uses a bit more space.