I Used #NixOS For 1 Year - It's Different

So as of a few days ago, I've been on NixOS for an entire year. Now, first off, I don't know where that year has gone. The time has just flown on by, but it has been a whole year, and I still have a whole year to go on my challenge. But I've been asked a few times now to provide an update, a year on NixOS, my thoughts. And I do have several thoughts that have kind of been building in the back of my brain over the course of the last year. So that's what we're going to do today, actually, is talk about those thoughts that I have on NixOS. Now, first off, apologies if this seems like a ramble, because it is one. I do have some notes, but they're just notes. I'm going to ramble on through the topics as my brain comes up with them. So apologies for any incoherentness that is usual in my videos, I guess. So when I think about NixOS and my experience with it so far, the biggest thing that comes to mind is the differences between NixOS and a traditional Linux distro like Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, what have you. And there are many different differences between the two different ways of creating a Linux operating system. Obviously, when you talk about a traditional Linux distro, you're talking about a file structure that the vast majority of Linux uses. When you talk about Nix, that file structure is completely different. When you talk about how things are done on the system, NixOS usually focuses all of their efforts on doing those traditional Linux things in their configuration file, whereas with traditional Linux distros, they usually have regular old commands that you would do in order to complete those operations. Now, before I move on, I should make it clear that just because NixOS does prod you towards doing things in their configuration files doesn't mean you can't do things in the traditional Linux way. For example, systemd. You can still use systemctl for all of your systemd needs on NixOS just like you can on Debian or Ubuntu or Fedora. It's not technically the correct way to do it on NixOS simply because you're supposed to put it in your configuration file. That way, it's much easier to rebuild your system should your system die or you get a new one or you need to move that config to another computer for whatever reason. The entire idea of NixOS is for it to be a declarative system. It means that everything basically is written down in a codified manner that you can pick up and carry along with you from computer to computer or reinstall from reinstall, right? That's the way you're supposed to do it, but it doesn't mean that you can't do it the old-fashioned way. I know old-fashioned comes across as, you know, kind of mean, maybe ageist a little bit, but what I mean, I should say traditional way instead of old-fashioned. So the traditional way. So I just want to kind of want to make that clear. So when we talk about differences and when I think of NixOS, I think of these differences. So the first big one is the file structure. Now, honestly, the reason why this is big is simply because it is so different. But in my experience over the course of the last year, the differences between the file system on NixOS and the file system on a traditional Linux distro doesn't really matter all that much in your day-to-day. You're not going to really notice the fact that your user directory is basically empty. You're not going to notice the fact that your system is mostly read-only in the root directory. You're not going to notice those things. Now, there have been times over the course of the last year, however, where that has not been the case. Now, as I record this today, actually, I did come across a situation where I noticed that difference. I'm using Android Studio to build an Android app and it needed to install an SDK. It tried to install it in the traditional way you'd find on a regular Linux distro and it couldn't do it because the system directory where it needed to install that thing didn't exist and it couldn't create it because the root system is read-only. So those differences showed up in an unexpected place. I can probably count the amount of times where the differences in file structure has actually mattered on one hand over the course of the last year. Usually, it's when an application tries to take something into its own hands and do something with the root directory, like install a package or something like that. Most of the time, it doesn't matter whatsoever. It matters much less than the naysayers will tell you that it matters. And I used to be one of those naysayers. In fact, the whole NixOS is not a real distro thing really stemmed from the idea outside of the configuration file that the file structure is completely different than every other Linux distro. And that's really what makes it not a Linux distro, in my opinion, right? But in terms of it actually mattering, not much at all. But it is there and you will notice it from time to time if you get into certain situations. So that's the first big difference. But I call it a big difference when it really played a minor role. But the biggest difference between a traditional Linux distro and NixOS and the one that you'll encounter every single time you want to do something with your system is system management. Now, I was originally going to call this package management because that's the part where you're going to kind of interact with it the most. But really, it's everything. It's not just, hey, I want to install Emacs or I want to install Steam. I have to go to my configuration file. That does obviously happen way more often than everything else. But because you're supposed to do everything in this declarative manner, you end up doing a lot of your traditional system management stuff inside of the configuration files. And that's a completely different frame of mind than what you'd have if you were using something like Fedora or whatever, right? So if you wanted to, say, for example, I wanted to have a service that started up a clipboard manager on my system. I could do that in a traditional way. Obviously, I could use systemctl enabled service just like you normally would. But on NixOS, really what you're supposed to do is go into the configuration file and put in a declarative statement that will start that service on your next system rebuild and will also carry along with that config if you were to take it to another reinstall or another computer. That's a big benefit, but it also is a big change from where you'd normally do that kind of thing, right? And one of the cool things about being able to do it this way and one of the things that I've kind of discovered, and I'll actually show you this. This is part of my NixOS config. This is my Samba config. Now, if you've watched my channel for any amount of time, you'll know that I have a big problem with Samba. I really, really do. I've made a whole video about how this is the most horrible thing to have ever been invented. Now, I will stand by the fact that if you're on a traditional Linux distro, getting Samba to actually start up and be able to be connected to by other computers can be a pain in the ass. And it still is a pain in the ass on NixOS. I'm not trying to say that NixOS solves our problems, but because of the way that it works and some of the magic that kind of goes behind it, you can do something like this. This is my Samba config inside of my Nix configuration file, and it gives all of the things you'd normally have to do in the Samba config right here. It also enables the service. So it enables the service, enables the firewall, has a whole bunch of settings, including the workgroup name and all of that stuff, right? It also allows you to control permissions for the things that you share right here without having to deal with chmod or chown or any of that stuff in the terminal. And it allows you to set up your firewall rules and all sorts of different stuff just for that one specific service. And you can see along the side there that I have a whole bunch of different things that I've done for services that have allowed me to do this in the Nix way. So things like audio and Bluetooth and stuff for my desktop and graphics and all sorts of stuff, right? If I actually show you my sync thing here, I've done the exact same thing for sync thing. I have sync thing set up on my system here. This starts the service. It will share a certain directory. It will allow you to set the settings directory and it allows you to set up the tray icon so that you can have the tray going to show that sync thing is running. Everything that relies on a service of some form or fashion allows you to do this kind of thing, where not only are you starting the service within a configuration file, but you are also configuring the service right here in one file. That's a big change from where you'd have to do in a traditional Linux distro, where you are more focused on starting the service and then hunting down the configuration file, figuring out the configuration file syntax and options and all that stuff, getting it saved because you've forgotten to use sudo and having to go through and do the edits again, and then going through and restarting the service and then finally using it, right? There's this whole process that you usually have to do, whereas on Nix, you do the one file, set it all up and then rebuild your system. Is it quicker or easier? I can't really argue that it's quicker or easier simply because you still have to learn both ways, but it's definitely more focused into one area instead of multiple areas where you have to kind of go around your system to do different things, right? I find it much more efficient than having to deal with all of those extraneous places. Now, services and systemd aren't the only places, obviously, where you'll mess around with your configuration file. The biggest one probably is going to be applications. Now, I have my applications in a modular fashion sorted by category. And basically what this is, is just my list of applications. And one of the things that I wrote down here in my notes is that it is very handy to have a list of the installed applications that you've managed to put on your system over the course of the period of time you've been using it. Now, every distro has a command somewhere out there that lists all of the installed packages over the course of time. But first off, you have to go look up the command. Sometimes it also includes system installed packages, which means you have to filter those out. I know when I was on OpenSUSE, OpenSUSE has a command that lists all of the packages, right? I don't even remember what the command is at this point, but it lists all of them. And then along the side, it puts a little I and an I plus or whatever. You have to kind of figure out what that actually means. On NextOS, you're never in doubt of what you've installed because you have a record of it. You have all of these things written down because you put them in there, right? And you can just go back and kind of see. It makes spring cleaning when you're trying to go through and pull out things that you don't use very easy because you just go in here and it's like, oh, I don't use, you know, MPV anymore, which is not true. But, you know, just for an example, I don't use Kdenlive anymore, which actually probably could get rid of that now that I got resolved working on Linux again. But the difference between going to a package manager in your terminal or a software store, if you're a GUI kind of person, is completely different than having to go through and do a edit in a configuration file then rebuild your system. Whether that, again, that's easier or more difficult really depends on how you look at it. For me personally, it's just different. It does include a couple extra steps. So if I were to install package on Arch, I'd do pacman dash capital S and then the name of the package, press enter, enter my password, and it would install. I'd be done. I'd be using the package, you know, within a minute or so, right? Depending on what I'm installing, you know, if I have to build it from scratch or whatever, right? On NixOS, I have to open up my configuration file. I have to put the package name where it needs to go. I need to go to a terminal. I need to then rebuild the system and then I get the package. Now, obviously there are other ways of getting a package if you need it not permanently, you can use a Nick Shell to do so. I might talk about Nick Shell later. I don't know if I'll get to it or not, but the most of the idea here is that if you want it to keep it permanently, you put it in your configuration file. You have to do these steps, right? So it's probably a little bit less efficient than a regular traditional package manager, but I think that at least for me personally, I've found that this system really, really works for me. I really like being able to organize things into their categories, have a list of everything that I have installed. So these right here are my media ones. I can go up here for gaming, which I don't actually have much in terms of gaming. I don't know. Steam is actually in a service package. So it's somewhere different. The development stuff is all here. I have PIPX installed. I have a whole bunch of stuff for Android and stuff like that. So this is where all my development stuff goes. And then I have one that are CI tools, things like BAT and BTOP and stuff like that. The same thing with like productivity, where I have, you know, this is where Emacs lives and HiFile, which I don't really need anymore or something like that, right? So I like being able to have all the stuff in their own categories alphabetized so I can kind of see where things go and what I have installed. For a person who's very visual like I am, it has been kind of a great way of doing things and I've enjoyed it. Like I said, I don't know that it's more efficient than the traditional way of doing things. In fact, I'd probably argue that it's not. But overall, it's still a very good way, at least for me, to do things. And it's definitely the way that you will interact with your system the most. Like every time you want to install package, chances are that's what you'll do. You'll hop into an editor of some kind where your configuration and open up your configuration, put in the name of the package, rebuild your system and carry on. Usually the services stuff, you go in spurts. Like you install sync thing or whatever, right? You'll do that and then you won't touch your services for quite some time. You'll end up spending most of your time when you're messing around with your configuration file, installing applications. So there's that. Now, there are a few NixOS tidbits, if you will, that are out there. They're really different. Things like Flakes, things like Home Manager. Those are added complexity on top of just a regular configuration file. And I do use Flakes. I do use Home Manager. And I may talk about those more here in a second. But when people think of NixOS and when I thought of NixOS for a long time, what's the first thing you think of? You think of a configuration file because that's the entire structure of the system. It all surrounds this, in my case, a hierarchy of files or one single file for a lot of people. And the entire system lives off from that document. But NixOS is more than that if you choose to embrace the complexity. So let me show you my Flake. So this is my Flake. You can even see it right up there at the top. It's called Matt's Flake. Now, a year ago, I guess it was a little bit longer than a year ago. So maybe even two years ago, I made a video talking about Flakes. And I tried my damnedest to explain what a Flake is. And you can go back and watch that video. I'll try to link it. I, at this point, a year into using this long-term, still can't tell you exactly what a Flake is supposed to be because everyone uses Flakes differently. And everyone explains them differently. And the idea behind them is very complex but also simple. It's very hard to say, hey, this is what Flakes are supposed to be. This is why they're good. A year in, I'm still not sure I can explain it very well. But let me tell you how I use them and the reason why I personally think that they're good. You see this first part here, we're under the input section. All of those GitHub colon whatevers, right? Those are all, for the most part, packages that I'm installing. Now, basically what this allows me to do, so for example, MangoWC, that's a window manager that I've been trying to, you know, test out over the course of the last little while. You can install that from a package somewhere along the line. I don't know if it's available on NixOS or not because you're supposed to install it via a Flake. But if you want to install like on Arch or whatever, you could go install MangoWC, right? On Nix, the best way to do it is through a Flake. And basically what this does is it allows you to source the direct Git repository for MangoWC, the entire package, right? The entire repository is given by this link right here, right? And you'd put this in your input section. You put it down here in your output section, which is, you know, right here. Basically, it just allows all of the files that are listed here to reference these files, right? And then you just go to one of these files in one of my apps or whatever. I would then install MangoWC. Basically what this is doing, if I'm explaining this reasonably, is taking that repository, cloning it in some form or fashion, getting all of the bits and pieces, and then building it for you. That's literally what it's doing in terms of what this Flake, you know, says, right? It's taking the repository. It's making it available for the rest of your configuration file. The configuration file says, hey, let's install MangoWC. And during your first build after putting that in there, it will install MangoWC. So the way that I've come to use this, and whether or not that's the correct way, or I'm explaining this the stupid way, I don't know. I can't tell you that. A year in, this is how I'm doing it. I'm basically using this as a way to install packages that were built for Nix through a Flake by source onto my system, okay? Now, you can use Flakes for other purposes. So for example, if you wanted to, say someone else created a snapshot of their system, or an application that you wanted to use, or something along those lines, right? You could put those into your Flake and use them basically using this syntax here. And the whole idea behind Flake lock and being able to have the exact same version of dependencies and stuff like that, that's all there in the background. And that's the way that Flakes work. But it muddles, at least in my mind, the explanation. Again, this is just the way that I use it. This is just a way for you to take Nix packages, or Nix Flakes, and put them inside of your Flake and then build a package from source. I know you're not supposed to use the name of the thing in the description, so you'll just have to forgive me. You can tell that even after a year, I'm still a little bit on Flakes. Not that I don't think that doing it this way is good or bad. It's just like the biggest problem I still have a year later is when someone says, hey Matt, what's a Flake? I don't know. I still don't know. It's a year later, I can't explain it. And that's a problem on NixOS's part for sure. But also it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. Because you can either use Flakes or you don't have to use Flakes. There are some videos out there, and that's how I got to this point. I use Vin Joyer's video and Libre Phoenix, or maybe Phoenix Libre. I can't remember. It's one of those two. I use those videos. I'll try it again to link those in the video description below to try to get myself wrapped around what a Flake is. And it got me started. The problem, of course, is NixOS complexity changes. There are now things called Flake Parts. And there's a couple other different ways of putting these things together. Because NixOS is a programming language. Or Nix is a programming language, I should say. And because that's true, there's more than one way to do everything. I was going to say something about skinning cats, but that's probably not the PC way of doing things, right? Everything you do on NixOS, and this here, this leads me to my biggest problem with NixOS. And I think I talked about this on the six months part, but it has been proven to me over the course of this year. Because there's a different way of doing everything, no one can explain how to do anything, okay? If you go ask a longtime Nix user, they can explain something to you if you ask them a question. But just because they've explained it to you doesn't mean you can actually use that knowledge unless you've done things exactly the way that they have. And chances are, you haven't. So those two videos that I actually mentioned just a few minutes ago, or, you know, a few moments ago, the Vimjoyer one, who does a lot of NixOS stuff, does a lot of really great videos on NixOS. The LibrePhoenix, Phoenix Libre guy, also has done some older videos on NixOS. And note that I said older because things have changed. It doesn't mean you can't do things the way that that guy did them. It just means that if you find a newer guide and you followed that guy, then you went and followed that video. Those two ways of doing things don't mesh. They block each other, right? Because they're two different ways of doing things. If you've done any programming ever in your life, and I know a lot of you haven't, but just take my word for it. I'm not a big programmer. I don't even consider myself a developer or programmer of any kind. I dabble, and that's being generous. But if you've ever looked at a... If you've ever tried to do DWM or anything like that, similar to how every patch that you put on DWM has to interact with the code that's already there in a certain way. And if it doesn't fit in exactly right when you're doing your patching, it fails. And that means you have to go in and you have to tinker with it. You have to figure out where the line numbers don't match up. Now, it's not the exact same situation, but you kind of get the idea. Everything that you do is your way of doing it. You can do things in an infinite number of ways. But because that's true, getting help is a pain in the ass. It is hard. I have NixOS friends. I have friends who use NixOS religiously. Some of these guys are almost zealots when it comes to NixOS, and they love this thing. I'm kind of joining them in some ways. I really do like NixOS, but I can go to my friends who are diehard Nix guys and ask them a question. Because they like talking about NixOS just as much as I do, they will tell me, hey, this is how you do it. I'll go put that code or that idea to use, and my system won't build because their way of doing something is completely different than the rest of my configuration was put together. They just don't fit together. They're two puzzle pieces that just won't fit together. And that means you really have to learn the language and way of doing things and build your configuration yourself. And that way, you know, when you come across something that's really cool or something that you need to do, whether or not it will work in your current setup. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes a lot of grinding of your teeth trying to figure out what way is up, what way is down. And it's not for everybody. I will make a video after the two years is done. I will. But my opinion of this isn't going to change in another year. NixOS isn't for everybody. In fact, it's for nobody. NixOS is for nobody. And let me tell you what I mean by this. There's not a problem that you have that is solved by NixOS that you don't realize it can solve without trying at first. I know that was a little oddly phrased. Let me try again. A lot of times when you are switching to something, you're switching to it because it's going to solve a problem you know you have, right? You need to do things a certain way. There's a package that you need something. There's a reason why you use like Ubuntu Studio or AV Linux, whatever it is, right? You go there because you know it has a certain use case that will solve a problem that you have. You're trying to get your music set up to work. So you go use a distro that is specific for music and content creation, right? Same thing for if you need to use NVIDIA graphics, right? Let's say, for example, you have NVIDIA graphics. A lot of times Pop! OS is where you want to go simply because they do a better job of integrating those graphics, right? You have a very specific issue that you're trying to solve. So you go to a distro to try to solve it because you have a good idea that it will. NixOS isn't like that. NixOS does solve problems but a lot of times, at least from the people that I've talked to and my own experience, when you go to try NixOS, it solves problems that you didn't know that you had. And that's cool. That's really cool. But it doesn't provide the best marketing for switching to it in the first place, right? The NixOS guys will tell you, oh, the reproducibility of it is really cool. How many people actually have more than one computer, first of all? Okay, not very many actually. And most people don't actually reinstall their computer very often. So the reproducibility on the same computer is also not very useful. It's good to have, but it's not the selling feature that the NixOS guys are going to tell you about. And then they're going to talk about the configuration file and doing it that way. None of that's actually a benefit that's going to draw people in. It's just going to actually scare them away because it's so different, right? But once you try it out, like the only reason to use NixOS if you haven't already is because you want to try it or you're a developer. But we'll talk about that maybe in a second. But really, if you just have the curiosity to try it and you'll get on here like I did and you learn some of the things like Nix shells, you learn things like some of the Flake stuff that's kind of interesting to do. You learn things like being able to control system services within the configuration file, which I adore. It's going to be so hard if I leave NixOS next year to go back to managing system services, the regular old way. It's going to be very, very difficult because this makes way more sense. It just makes way more sense to me, my brain now, because I can do everything all in one place. It's so cool. But I didn't know that it was so cool until I got in here and got into it, right? You couldn't have shown me this stuff before and I would be like, well, the old way is fine. It works fine. I'm sure there are people out there right now watching this video. If you've made it however far along I'm in, 30 minutes in, you're probably saying, well, what's wrong with the old way? Even if you're not an old beard who's really against change, maybe you're still new. What's wrong with doing the old way? There's nothing wrong with doing the old way. This way I've just found works better for me. But again, you can't have that experience without trying it first. And you can't just tell people to try things, right? There has to be a reason, right? There has to be something that you can say, this right here is going to solve that problem that you have. And then sometimes you can tell people that, but they're not going to be able to get it through their brain without actually having done the thing, right? So my biggest takeaway from a year with NixOS is simply that it's very, very good and I really, really like it and I may stay on it forever. I really do like it. So my last long-term review was OpenSUSE and then I moved on to Nix, right? Comparing those two, I like Nix more. As of right this minute, I like Nix more. Now, is that recency bias? Perhaps, because if you remember, right, I bought the sticker. I was the OpenSUSE guy. I was the biggest fanboy of OpenSUSE. But now I'm a big fanboy of NixOS. Maybe I just like the thing that I'm using and I have no ability to separate out, you know, the thought process of, oh, I like this better on there and this better on here. I can point towards right now the fact that I like NixOS better in almost every single way. I like doing the packages this way. I like managing the services this way. I like the stability of NixOS just a little bit better than OpenSUSE. I've been able to go a whole year without reinstalling and because of the way Nix works and the way Nix generations work, doing some cleaning from time to time is much easier than on OpenSUSE simply because of the way Nix works, whereas OpenSUSE is a much more traditional Linux distribution. It's easier on a traditional distribution just to wipe everything clean and start over again, whereas on NixOS, you can pull things out and because of the way that the configuration builds, you can know if you made a mistake before your system dies, whereas on OpenSUSE, you delete something you're probably not even going to notice until you reboot your computer. So I do really, really enjoy NixOS and at this point, I'm like, oh, I'm going to stick here for a long time. I think this is the way that I want to use Linux. Will that be the case in a year? I don't know. Maybe I'll get bored with it. Maybe I'll be looking for a new challenge by then, I don't know, but I can't become the type of guy who says you should use NixOS. I mean, I do. Let me actually show you guys this. I don't know if you guys are going to get to see my laptop. There is a NixOS sticker on my laptop, along with a whole bunch of profanity. I can't take this to the library, but probably should have shown that to kids, man. Kids, I'm telling you. But anyways, I have a sticker, but I can't get on my YouTube channel and say you should use NixOS unless you're a developer. If you're a developer, I really want you to try NixOS and really get into it, not just like install it, but I want you to try out Nix shells. I want you to try out all of the really cool tooling that NixOS allows you to do in a certain way to create environments for your development work. It's amazing. I have several different projects that I've been working on over the course of the last year. Most of it's just little piddly stuff, right? Things I'm using to learn or little tools that I need because that's what I'm developing for is stuff that I need. NixOS has helped me do that because I can go into a directory, create a flake that just exists in that directory, open up a Nix shell with that flake, and all of a sudden, I have all the packages that I need, all of the exact version of those dependencies and stuff that I need, and then I can just build it right from that shell and test it, right? As if it was running in a container all on its own. And that's really, really cool. Now, you can replicate that on other distros through some work, but Nix comes with it built in. And that's just the base level of it. There's a whole bunch more on top of that. So if you are a developer, if you do a little bit of development work or you're a full-time developer, NixOS is for you, okay? Now, can it also be for non-developers? Yes. I do believe that that can be the case, but you got to try it to figure out what problems it actually solves for you. So, all right. I've rambled on enough. We're pushing 40 minutes. Hopefully, I'll be able to edit out some of this stuff. But if not, welcome to my rambles, people. You know, I ramble. That's what I do. So if you have any questions or anything about NixOS that you'd like to post about, you can do that in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from you. You can follow me on MaskedHonorOdyssey. Those links will be in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash linuxcast. Just a small note. I do put out a patron-only podcast. I usually call it a weekly patron-only podcast, but I've been really ---- recently about putting it out every week. It's like very, very bad. So first off, to my patrons and YouTube supporters who signed up for that, I apologize for not being very good at doing that. I'm going to get back into it. But along with videos, it is just kind of, it's going to be a slow slog for me to actually do that. But I'm going to, I'm going to. But if you do want to support me on Patreon, I do do, I do, I do put together a, what am I, five years old? Sorry. I put together a patron-only podcast where I just sit in front of this microphone and just ramble, just basically like this, but only they get access to it. If you want more of this kind of thing, support me on Patreon or on YouTube here in the membership section. Membership section. Good lord. Thanks to everybody who does support me on Patreon and YouTube. You guys are all absolutely amazing. 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