Btw, I don't use Arch

When I first started my job, a coworker set me up with a machine running NixOS. I gave it a year before I binned it for Ubuntu. I just... didn't see the point? The troubleshooting wasted so much of my time for seemingly no benefit.

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The config file for managing basically the whole OS is amazing to begin with. Also the fact that the system is freshly rebuilt every update is neat too. And there is something where if a certain package requires a certain version of a library it will be installed alongside the current version just incase. Avoiding dependency hell.

About troubleshooting, the official wiki for nixos got made this year so it finally will start to make sense to new users. I used to use arch because of their amazing wiki but now I use nixos since there is an active effort to make it easier.

wiki.nixos.org

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- I use Gentoo btw
  
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I've been using NixOS for about 3 years. Probably going to switch back to Arch, though.

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I think the point apart from declaring the whole system is that Nix saves changes to config files, this eliminates the concept of .pacnew / .pacsave.

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You didn't even care to relabel the axes, I don't trust you.

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Yeah right now this graph says that on other OSs, your gaming skill steadily improves as you play.

But by the time you've learned and set up NixOS, your gaming skills will be crazy powerful but you've plateued.

...I guessssss it could make sense? XD

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It was about dwarf fortress, i refuse to belive otherwise

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- I vaguely remember it being about EvE Online, totally possible it was repurposed.
  
  4
- what about rogue-likes on insane? people falling from the cliff sure looks like that to me
  
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Was the original a joke about MMO learning curves with the top line being Path of Exile?

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I'm pretty sure I saw this with EVE Online a long time ago.

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- Yeah
  
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- Eve Online is the finest, most intricate MMO ever created, and I absolutely hate it.
  
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EVE Online I think

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- I work with spreadsheets all day, why would I want to do it in my free time?
  
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Path of exile is fine as long as you follow someone elses build

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- You might be able to get through the story and a couple of maps pretty easily without a guide, later acts will be difficult if you specced really wrong, but if you want to run endgame content and league mechanics while on a hardcore solo self founded character then you better go get fucking gud, mate.
  
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Shame AO wasn't there, probably not Eve level but also more enjoyable

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The axis don't make sense.

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The original comic was about the learning curve of various games. The black line represents Dwarf Fortress

The original comic was very accurate

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- No, the black line is EVE Online. There could have been an edit replacing it with Dwarf Fortress, but the original is definitely about EVE Online.
  
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- I have Dwarf Fortress on my wishlist and while it's cheap to pick up...yeah that looks like X4 levels of complexity but in 2d. Not sure if I'll ever be ready for that, haha.
  
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Windows is decidedly the green line, Debian the red.

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Was thinking same. I always think windows is the easiest to get used from beginning, but that could be cause windows was the first operating system i was dealing with. Playing with the amiga 3000 could be the start, but there i was only 5

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- Windows XP wasn't exactly intuitive to me and now only I know what my keybinds for Hyprland are so um maybe you're right. Honestly switching to Ubuntu made things a lot easier for me than they were on windows because it was easier to change settings and similar just by using terminal commands rather than a weird gui or not at all.
  
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100% true

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Does this graph mean what it is supposed to mean for the joke to work? The black line means I learn much quicker with less time investment, i.e. it is easier than all the others.

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No it means that it requires much more skill earlier in the progression.

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- That is a common misunderstanding of how learning curves work. A steep learning curve means your skill increases more rapidly with the invested time. That means the subject is easier or more intuitive.
  
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- You nearly had it. The black line starts higher at "gaining skill" so it requires more skill to start learning but after short time you are gaining much more skill in the same time.
  
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I don't think I will ever feel comfortable learning NixOS since they accepted a sponsorship from Anduril until there was community backlash. Anduril performs violent border survailence for the US government and are responsible for a huge amount of death and suffering.

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I don't like Anduril either, but what's wrong with taking their money and using it for good purpose?

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- I'm with you in some cases. Who you take money from is not the same as who you give money or support to, necessarily. I think the worry in this case is that it's a surveillance company.
  
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I use guix cause having an entire OS centered around Scheme is cool and based.

Wearing out the parentheses keys on my keyboard

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Cool, though mileage will vary considering guix is linux-libre

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- You can use non-guix
  
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Do you happen to know if KDE is already available there?

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- KDE is not, Plasma is:
  
  https://guix.gnu.org/en/manual/devel/en/guix.html#Desktop-Services
  
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I've been searching for so long for a way to have my software and configs and project deps tracked in a way that doesn't have me setting things up every time I switch to a new machine or--worse--opening an old project. I found some things that get me most off the way there like docker, rtx/mise, direnv, stow, or the package manager for whatever language I'm working in at a time. Still, nothing quite does what I need.

I tried our NixOS and have it on three machines as well as Nix on WSL. It took a while for me to figure it out, especially moving to flakes and separating user config out to home-manager. But it was fun enough to try and fail and fail and fail then succeed that I kept going. I think it might be what I'm looking for. I was able to set up a new machine by just cloning a repo and any time I cd into a project on NixOS or a remote Linux server or even Windows with WSL, everything is just ready for me. Do wish it were fully POSIX compliant, though.

I know this is from more of a developer perspective, but even for gaming and graphics I've never had an easier time getting Nvidia drivers set up.

I promise I'm not shilling. I still have a lot to learn. I think I made it past the cliff on this meme but I might be surprised.

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Yeah, no. Windows is the easy starter but the more you get experience, the more you fight the system.
Or you go the Linux approach and set your tooling up from start via third-parties from Chocolatey/Scoop. Guess the red line represents this.

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That's exactly how nixos went for me you feel like you understand it and then went to go and look at old configs after awhile and was like what in the fuck and rewrote the whole thing but once you figure it out it's pretty easy to keep learning

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No temple OS?

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Joking aside, has anyone legitimately tried to port an app to TempleOS, just for fun?

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- Dude I hate you. You got my curiosity. I'll have to look into it. Damn it.
  
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One day, one day soon I will install nixOS on my ThinkPad. Til then I will continue using silverblue like a pleb

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Well i do need to do a quick ol distro hop cos currently on manjaro and well im not particularly happy with it. I like debian headless on mer server so might jump to sonthing based on that, this graph isnt making nix look like a good choice tho pls enlighten me to the benefits

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Just get endevour for a good arch experience without the hassle.

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- It's basically idiot proof.
  
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- Arch from scratch installed fine for me and ran great. EndevourOS threw errors during install and the desktop was littered with random popup errors...tried it twice a few years apart and Endevour was a poor experience with a janky looking UI
  
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- Basicly Arch with graphical installer? Btw, Artix does the same.
  
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manjaro was terrible when I used it (several years ago), imo it is fundamentally broken. I would suggest trying a smoother arch install. I always recommend endeavoros because I had an effortless experience with it.

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- Still using endeavor? I’m using nobara with a catchyos kernel right now lol
  
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If you don't already know the benefits it's unlikely it solves a problem you have.

Even among its users many are using it because it's cool rather than because they actually need it.

It's a declarative system, meaning you can describe how it should be setup (using a magic strings you have to look up online) and then it "sets up itself" according to the description.

It's normally something you'd use for mass and/or repetitive deployments.

It's usefulness for a single system is debatable, considering you can achieve very close to 100% of "reproducibility" anyway by copying /home and /etc and fetching a copy of the package list.

Where the prescriptive approach is supposed to help is when you attempt to reproduce the system a long time later, after things like config files and packages have changed. But it doesn't help with /home, it hasn't been tested over long intervals, and in fact nobody guarantees long term compatibility for Nix state.

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Nix is not place that you want to go just for the hell of it.

If you want to be able to store your entire operating system config in a repo, and spread it to a bunch of other boxes, and have the ability to rollback to any point in your install history, it's the bee's knees.

But to do that, you need to rely on there massive community repository of apps understand their language, and be ready to fight with most uncommon packages that you might want. You can't just install or upgrade apps anymore. Upgrading channels to get app updates as much less likely to go smoothly.

Overall for me, NixOS is a net positive but it's not by that much. If I were going to go from scratch again I'd probably just go back to Debian. But, sunk cost fallacy I'm in it now and I need a good reason to get out of it.

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NixOS documentation refusing to generate pages like readthedocs can drive a man insane...

Anti Commercial-AI license

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NixOS documentation refusing to generate pages like readthedocs can drive a man insane...

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For anyone worried about the Nix drama, a fork has already happened.

You can find it under lix.systems.

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Thank you, was wondering what happened there.

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- There's been a couple forks but that's not all. They are made votes to massively restructure their governance system. Things are looking up on the main nixos branch!
  
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Woohoo I'm almost driving the bulldozer... Almost

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After using Silverblue for some time I tried to use Arch again, and pacman had failed at installation process. A easy fix for that is to be like: 1. Get list of all the installed packages; 2. Install all these packages again with --force. But after using immutables the situation is just meh.

And also now I dislike package managers which require to be used with sudo, and cannot ask for permissions with polkit.

So. BTW, I don't use Arch.

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Is the package manager as extensive as arch? Does it have an AUR equivalent? I've been wanting to try Nix or GUIX for a while.

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- https://github.com/0atman/noboilerplate/blob/main/scripts/map_repo_size_fresh.svg
  
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- It's been just over a month using Fedora silverblue (Ublue ) for me and the experience has been pretty good.
  
  What I do is just setup a distrobox container with the arch image and install software using paru from AUR. So far this workflow has been working really well. for me.
  
  Also if you decide to use any Ublue spin, you'll also get homebrew pre-installed. So that can also be considered as an alternative option to AUR.
  
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I have no idea how Windows is the red line in this, it should be the green but even steeper

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Just learn UNIX then you inherently know everything except windows

(though mostly true this is still a joke relax)

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LFS would be a much better fit.

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