Re:My transition to an Ubuntu workstation
by 44point2 on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @01:37PM
(#21336920)
Sounds like we've made exactly the same distro-hopping journey. I went from Arch -> NixOS -> Ubuntu, and am now torn between Pop!_OS, Fedora Silverblue, or back to NixOS. I thought Ubuntu would be nirvana - just use the defaults, and use the computer as a tool rather than endlessly tweaking it forever - but it's less "just works" than I was lead to believe and I miss knowing the exact state of my system just from a set of nix files. I'd love to know if your Pop!_OS + Nix solution works.
Re:My transition to an Ubuntu workstation
by jbboehr on Wednesday October 23, 2019 @04:37PM
(#21338722)
It's kind of a pain, but you can use buildFHSUserEnv [0] to run a custom binary. If memory serves, this also works by writing the config for buildFHSUserEnv in a .nix file, running it with nix-shell, and then running the desired binary "the old-fashioned way."
I don't want to distrohop anymore, Arch was awesome and NixOS feels like the next step. But it doesn't really feel ready for a (maybe) less experienced user. It feels a bit like gentoo in the way that you need to re-link the libs for non-nixos packages or package a binary you just built yourself.
I think the thing I'm going to try next is PopOS with only the Nix package manager, it feels like a good middle ground between living in configs and no hassle with non-entry level documentation.