NixOS
this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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libre
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The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.
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founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Fedora KDE for half a year now
NixOS
Declarative configuration is so good
I like the idea of NixOS but didn't like how it worked in practice. The custom language for configurations was annoying, the errors it spat out never made sense to me, I couldn't run binaries compiled for a regular linux distro, docker didn't seem to work properly, some stuff needs to be setup in a shell.nix file instead of the global configuration file for some reason. I would probably get the hang of it eventually but I just couldn't be bothered, the annoying shit outweighs any potential benefits tbh.
Yea, the custom lang was annoying, got used to it, but like, why not just take something already made instead of making yet-another-language.
I luckily rarely have to run binaries, but when I do, I chuck the games into lutris, and non games something like steam-run.
Not sure about shell.nix, too vague to talk about. I will say though, that I found direnv + lorri + shell.nix (or flake.nix) very useful, lets me cd into a dir and all the packages needed for that project are available, without having to install them globally, other people will also benefit from this if shell.nix and .envrc are checked in to git.
I would probably get the hang of it eventually but I just couldn't be bothered, the annoying shit outweighs any potential benefits tbh.
Yup. I didn't have too many annoying problems for it to outweigh the benefits. I also have a server, so that weighs on benefits.
You can run Nix home-manager on your current distro and start gradually moving your configurations and software over to Nix as you become more comfortable with it but still have your normal way of doing things if you need something installed quickly, then move all of it to NixOS when you're ready. It's better to start that way than jump straight to NixOS IMO
I've been using Linux as my daily driver for over a decade and after distro hopping for a few years, I finally settled on Linux Mint because for what it's worth, it just works. It's pretty close to a Windows environment, it's built on top of apt, and it's got good driver support for Nvidia. It comes with mostly useful default software and Nemo is a good file browser.
Guix, but it's not for linux newbies I think. Although it's completely libre, too much in fact, it didn't have some drivers I need for my laptop so I needed to non-libre it a bit...
Debian is very beginner friendly and very stable, but stable means the software is pretty old compared to other distros. Security updates are timely and everything no trouble on that front, but often I wondered why some app didn't have some feature only to find out it does, for over a year in fact, but the version implementing it hadn't made it through Debians QA yet.
I think it's a really good place to start, but if you find it "lacking" you may want to look into alternatives.
Also remember you can multi-boot, so you can try different distros, or set up a virtual machine to testdrive some distro. It's not terribly difficult but does require some time.
Guix has a very small but dedicated community, I respect the maintainers not giving nonfree software upstream support since it's hard enough maintaining the free software in the repo anyway.
I'd argue that Debian's slow release cycle is more a liability than a strength nowadays. GNOME+KDE gets a new release every 6 months or so and COSMIC will get one every year, this means that while using Debian you're missing out on a lot of features during those 2 years (Debian is still on Plasma 5.27 while upstream is on 6.2). Wayland+Pipewire+Portals (not as easy to say compared to just "Xorg" lol) is moving really quickly compared to the last decade or so.
If Debian switched to a yearly release cycle then I could see most of these problems be less of an issue but 2 years is an epoch in modern Linux time.
Arch until I get my desktop setup to install Gentoo again. I miss portage so much. I'm going to see if I can make a minimal FreeBSD host install to serve as a hypervisor, and then virtualize various Linux, BSD, and other operating systems, with a Gentoo VM as my main OS. Why FreeBSD? Well...
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Russian-Linux-Maintainers-Drop
I would do OpenBSD, but it looks like FreeBSD is much farther ahead on developing AMD IOMMU support, which is what I need.
https://freebsdfoundation.org/project/amd-iommu/
And if that fails, I may just make a very locked down Gentoo hypervisor, and then I will just practice with a BSD VM until it is ready.
I would like to play with Guix, NixOS, and T2 SDE, and also try LFS.
I use OpenWRT on my routers.
For servers, I'm a CentOS refugee who is stuck with Oracle Linux (*shudder*) because of work reasons, and because I didn't want to get in on the whole Rocky/Alma diaspora. For desktop, I still like Fedora, and for WSL, I think I'm running Ubuntu because fuck it, why not. Fedora was my daily driver for my work machine at my previous job; GNOME on Wayland was buggy as shit back then, but it was still a step up from Windows 10 randomly installing updates and rebooting my machine because I got up to get coffee or to pee. It also helped not having to fuck around with Cygwin to use rsync and scp from my dev workstation.
Opensuse tumbleweed Plasma 6
Debian on my desktop. Fedora on my laptop.
Linux Mint Debian Edition.
Void Linux
Arch (btw) on my personal computer and Pop_OS! on a shared computer with my family.
I think I went Ubuntu > Xubuntu > Mint > Lubuntu > Kubuntu > Arch (LXQt) > Arch (DWM)
Mint was great as a relatively new linux user. LXQt is fantastic on old hardware. After KDE I really wanted to try a tiling window manager, really enjoying it so far.
Fedora on my laptop, I switched because I wanted to use the Plasma cube but I think I ended up getting GNOME, which works well enough so I don't mind.
I put Mint on an old laptop for my kids. The laptop is so old windows stopped supporting WiFi drivers for it, but it could connect to the internet with Mint out of the box.
And I've got an old Dell off a guy I put Debian on. I went with xfce so it uses less than a gig ram at idle and I plan to use it as a server once I can figure out docker
CachyOS btw.
Bazzite on desktop because it actually just works and headless Debian on my server because stuff like CoreOS is such a pain in the ass with SELinux.
Haven't used it on the desktop since forever. On servers I use a mix of AlmaLinux and Ubuntu.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu LTS on server
i dual boot windows and solus linux. it was a good distro when i got it but the lack of support has made me just use the windows side for a while now
Zorin, because it's very slim for my shit ass laptop. To be honest, it gives me grief sometimes, and I thought about switching until the other day when I needed to turn my laptop into a router, and it only took me about 2 clicks, because it was built into the network manager.
Debian on my workshop computer
Debian on my Minecraft/plex server
Debian on my NAS
EndeavourOS on my old laptop that I fuck around with
Arch, btw. And Guix. And Fedora. And Debian. And some more.
Almost every computing device I own runs Linux.
KDE Neon but I might move to fedora or ~~KDE Neon~~ Tuxedo OS eventually
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mint bc mint is tasty and a nice color :3
counterpoint: Mint ice cream is a terrible idea because who wants to eat something that tastes like toothpaste? Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream is an assault on the senses.
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Alpine. It’s pretty lovely, but usually when I’m setting something up for someone else it’s either Debian or Fedora.
Been using popos for a while now. I'm at the point of Linux between wanting more ui customization options and not wanting to have to mess wit reinstalling a new distro. If I do reinstall at some point, I'll probably switch to fedora or something
I have two devices, one runs Arch and the other runs Gentoo. Arch because I got used to it a while ago and really like the flexibility, and Gentoo because I took it as a challenge and ended up liking it.
Just slap proxmox on it and use them all
i usually just use debian but im lazy lately so i started using mx (debian with some convenience tools), no complaints
Fedora Asahi Remix with Guix Home which I moved a lot of my configurations and software to for my laptop. Proxmox + Debian + Docker for my server, I have a few things on a Guix System VM but haven't had time to move anything else nor have I started it up in a while.
Arch, but I don't really use desktop linux very much. On servers I usually run debian
Arch btw