NixOS’ influence and importance at pushing Linux forward into the (previously) unexplored landscape of configuring your complete system through a single config file is undeniable. It’s been a wild ride, but it was well worth it.
And although it has only been relatively recently that it has lost its niche status, the recent influx of so-called ‘immutable’ distros springing up like mushrooms is undeniably linked to and inspired by NixOS.
However, unfortunately, while this should have been very exciting times for what’s yet to come, the recent drama surrounding the project has definitely tarnished how the project is perceived.
NixOS’ ideas will definitely live on regardless. But how do you envision NixOS’ own future? Any ETA’s for when this drama will end? Which lessons have we learned (so far) from this drama? Are there any winners as a result of this drama? Could something like this happen to any distro?
In case you’re out of the loop. Though, there’s a lot that has transpired since but which hasn’t been rigorously documented at a single place; like how 4 out of 5 NixOS board members have quit over the last 2 months or so.
It’s been 6 more months, so, here’s your answer.
It’s probably wise to simply ignore the drama. Open source seems to invite this at the “top” for whatever reason, but for the casual user there is usually little to no impact.
Unless you’re trying to be a top contributor to nix, I would just carry on with normal usage and all the current drama will blow over.
Idk imo knowing about the drama makes me hesitant to go back, especially since I switched all my development environments from Nix to Guix and I dont want to have three package managers lol Plus the Guix community seems really close knit
Also, happy cake day!
Conway’s Law applies in this respect; the mess in governance of Nix has produced a product that reflects that mess. Nix started a beautiful movement but like many first movers, they rarely reap long-term rewards.
Oof. That sucks. Didn’t know that was a thing
All good reasons to make a decision, I’m not trying to sway anyone in a direction.
I just feel bad when people see drama in a community and wonder if that thing is “safe”. I’ve seen this kind of thing many times before in other communities—PERL, Python, Ruby, Rust, etc—and it never seems to lead to sweeping changes the normal user would notice. It’s pretty safe to assume that day-to-day users of thing can just carry on if they don’t care about the community upset.
That’s true. That’s what I’ve been seeing in places, people just saying to continue on and ignore the drama. And I know I shouldn’t let a group idea/thing dictate whether I use nix but like I was already starting to not like how it seemed like a lot of people were like “write all your stuff in nix (configs, etc)” and I didn’t want to get locked in. Plus I got busy and didn’t feel like tinkering with it. Idk. I was already losing interest in a weird way. I still think immutable/reproducible distros are cool though. I’m now just currently running Guix on top of arch and using aconfmgr to emulate some reproducibility.
NixOS is never going mainstream. When the answer to everything is oh just write a package for it. Unless their is a nice gui to edit your configuration file also it well always be niche.
I would avoid getting locked in to one platform. Portable and flexible is better
Yeah that makes sense. I still have my old nix shell files so I can use them if need be for my environments
Not to add fuel to the flame by asking, but how’s it been on Guix? I’ve heard Guix does a lot of things better, but also that there’s far less packages and it’s harder on modern hardware.
I’m not the op, but I’ve been using guix for several months on a new fairly top of the line desktop PC and it’s going great. I’ve been able to play steam games and set up my dev environment with basically no issues.
The catch is you need to use non-official repositories (i.e. https://github.com/nonguix/nonguix) to use the non-libre kernel and other software not on the official channel.
There’s also this nice little search engine - https://toys.whereis.みんな/ - where you can look for packages from other repos (or channels as they are called in guix).
I use Nix on my macos work laptop to set up my dev environment, but I definitely prefer guix so far, mostly due to the it being configured in guile over the weird nix language. The biggest advantage I see of Nix is that it has a bit more features and lots more packages.
I am a pretty hardcore emacs user and lisp lover though, so ymmv.
https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix
They literally have this as the link in all their docs so I am not sure why you would choose the mirror on the fully-proprietary, Microsoft-owned code forge.
I chose the mirror cause I was just writing that comment super quickly on my phone. But uh, thanks for the right link I guess?
I haven’t tried running a full Guix system yet but im really liking it as a package manager on top of arch. Yes, hardware support can be iffy, but there is an unofficial channel called nonguix that packages the standard Linux kernel instead of linux-libre, and yes there are less packages but honestly packages are so much more fun to write? I’ve written a few package definitions for both my own use and ive made a request to add one to the official channel. And I feel like, if I really needed something that would not be packaged due to complexity or something, I could try and use flatpak or an appimage or something. I think its definitely worth checking out.
uh, the drama being what it is about people in positions of power blocking efforts to make a welcoming and diverse nixos community, persisting right wing concern trolling, and especially what appears to be maybe a military tech company takeover of nixos, it’s hella understandable people would want to reconsider using this tech on their own hardware and it’s pretty sus to respond to this with ‘ah just drama it’ll blow over’…
Just like the xz backdoor I agree “nothing to see here, move along” seems like bad advice.
It is curious to wonder how much state actors and militaries are involved in weaponizing FOSS culture to purge potential perceived opponents.
For this reason sticking to technological merit and leaving personal beliefs out of FOSS seems wise.
FOSS shouldn’t be state actor’s play thing. When leadership behaves radically and is exclusive it looses my respect & support.
military tech company
wait until they find out where computers and the internet came from. or Tor… GPS, etc etc.
Of how much “militsry” contributed to FOSS. Or how Linux is no longer the lone programmer hacking on code in there spare time. But the vast majority of FOSS is done by companies.
Didn’t GPS come from NASA?
If you think that’s a military take over. Don’t look under the rug of Linux/foss at large.
Understandable, maybe to some. But no matter how hard the activist core currently in charge of the moderation team would like me to believe it, not everyone brings political activism to the table on this project. And that’s a good thing. It is still perfectly possible to enjoy working with good tech and build cool stuff without bringing a soap box alongside your laptop.
fuckin yikes
Worst case the community forks. This is the benefit of open source.
I believe there is a much larger, silent majority of nix users, contributors and enthusiasts that are not affected by this drama. Here’s a post that resonates with me: https://nrd.sh/blog/nixos-policy-breakdown/
Over 20 years in this technology space, I’ve come to recognize software built on very solid foundational concepts. Nix is one of those. It’s not going anywhere and neither is NixOS. I encourage anyone interested in Nix to read Eelco Dolstra’s thesis: https://edolstra.github.io/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf
That’s a thought-provoking article you linked. Thanks. Unfortunately, ideological purity testing is a major problem across all sectors and spans the political spectrum. I was particularly struck by the part of the article that discussed whether “marginalized” status should be considered permanent or temporary.
I’ve worked in social services for a long time. Social activism is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, marginalized groups need activists to push their agenda. On the other, activists often adopt that social activism as their primary identity and sometimes even their career. This sets up an incentive structure whereby they don’t actually want to solve the problem of marginalization. Instead, they focus on ideological purity rather than pragmatically solving whatever problems they face.
Sexual orientation, indigenous rights, trans rights, disability rights, race, gender, even recreational drug use, are all marginalization issues that have all received a reasonable degree of social acknowledgement and formal protection.
In all the years I’ve worked in social services, the one issue that never goes away and is never solved or even seriously tackled is the intersection of poverty and mental illness. We are getting better as a society with treatable mental illness like depression and anxiety. However, major mental illness or untreatable/undiagnosed conditions like lack of impulse control that make it hard or impossible to work lead almost inexorably to poverty, addiction, and involvement with the criminal justice system. The activism on that front is itself marginalized because the “fix” isn’t a matter of changing language or mind set, but rather a massive investment of resources. It is easier to sit behind a keyboard and advocate online for nebulous issues like representation than to get out there and make people care about issues that cost real money.
As someone who works with seriously impoverished and mentally ill people, I find the sometimes extreme drama associated with identity politics, representation, pronouns, etc. rather ridiculous. A lot of it is just people trying to externalize their personal issues and force others to acknowledge them, which is unfortunate when it poisons a project or community. It is a form of narcissism, essentially. People who do that should go down to the tent cities, homeless shelters, and jails to get some perspective on just how “marginalized” they actually are and whether publicly exorcising their personal demons is worth destroying the enjoyment of others in a project or community. Their energy could almost certainly be better spent in less narcissistic pursuits.
When I see posts like this and suggest keeping politics out of technical communities, my comment just gets removed by the mods for “transphobia”. I can’t even wrap my head around that one…
Other (multiple) times I’ve had different people respond with “a person’s right to exist is not a political issue, it’s a human rights issue”… as if I was ever talking about anyone’s right to exist.
Then I get the people who say that it’s impossible to not have politics in a community, as eventually someone will come along and do things like the SerenityOS drive-by PR and now any action or inaction by the owner that doesn’t fit their narrative is labeled as some kind of personal attack against them and they call on their friends to go full-on SJW war against the project because someone had an opinion they don’t like.
For you to understand: when you say “keep politics out of tech” that is an explicit political position and you are basically saying “politics for me, but not for you”. Or to put it in different terms: unspoken support for the status quo, is a deeply reactionary political position and you are trying to enforce this by “keeping politics out of tech”.
I disagree. But I think the overall intention with saying that is simply that we/I don’t want to have that discussion or it’s off-topic/not the right place. I guess that could be said instead although I doubt it would really make much difference. People will still find a way to complain and boycott even if you do nothing i.e. “silence is violence”.
I think a lot of people will simply stay away from your project if you invite that kind of discussion, regardless of who is right or wrong. More people than might otherwise be attracted by arguably more explicit and inclusive stances.
a person’s right to exist is not a political issue, it’s a human rights issue
The funny part is that you forget or ignore the fact that human rights is a political issue, thus the right to exist is political.
I wasn’t the one who said that, but I agree with you.
To be fair, one person’s “politics” is another person’s life. When you say “politics” in the sense and context we have here, what does it really mean? It probably means something like “controversial topics related to gender, race, or sexual preference”. When you think of it that way, it is easy to see that excluding discussion of these topics could be seen as excluding or devaluing people with non-mainstream characteristics. An example of that would be the “Don’t Say Gay” law in Florida, or the US military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy whereby they would allow homosexuals in the military as long as they kept quiet about it.
However, those conversations can be delicate and fraught, so I can see why many people want to keep them to a minimum in certain communities. I have a lot of sympathy for mods that have to moderate such conversations. In general, though, I don’t think it makes sense to remove comments or people unless they are clearly malicious. There are plenty of people for whom topics related to identity are alien or controversial or too painful and personal. Simply calling people “sealions” or “concern trolls” or “transphobic” or whatever and removing them from the conversation is not only wrong, but counter-productive, in my humble opinion. I think the vast majority of people come to conversations with good intentions, but different levels of knowledge, conflict tolerance, and interest in perceived off-topic digressions.
deleted by creator
In September the NixOS constitutional assembly should finish their work, and the community will be able to elect governance. I’m guessing that’s when the drama will start getting resolved.
In the meantime, there are multiple maintainers that have left because of the drama - which is more troublesome than the board members leaving - but nixpkgs has a LOT of maintainers, and there are new ones joining all the time. It’s still healthy and won’t implode so quickly.
Informative post. Thank you!
Is Nix really so important to the world that it needs a constitutional assembly, a board of directors, and general elections?
I always gathered that it was a niche project within the niche of Linux distro projects.
Is it a bunch of people playing out a company governance fantasy or is it actually a large, well valued company? I think that the vast majority of people wouldn’t even be able to make an informed voting decision.
I am also quite out of the loop I feel…
I heard developers find it rather easy to do reproducible build in Nix, so it is more utilized over dev landscape. Basically a competitor of docker, and quite significant one at that. That’s why it is considered big, despite that it is niche from desktop linux pov.
You should know that the guy you cited in the second link, Srid, is a well-known right-wing shit-stirrer who is banned from basically all NixOS spaces because he cannot peacefully coexist. He literally gets up day after day with the seemingly sole purpose of fueling drama and causing problems. Don’t take his opinion at face value, he wants to see the project burn down and this colors his interpretation of events.
NixOS is going through a rocky moment for sure, but there’s no indication it will implode currently.
Thank you for mentioning who he is and what his goals are!
which is hilarious because any time I make comments like that, they get removed.
I think we should attack the arguments made and not the people, seems a bit hypocritical IMO.
I attacked his beliefs which is perfectly valid. You should critically examine the motives and biases of people who feed you information.
I am critically examining your responses and I believe that you are making personal attacks.
Criticizing people’s past and current actions relating to the subject and bringing up their direct history relavent to the subject is not a personal attack, nor is it out of line to point out he does his to advance his political agenda within the project, which is why he got banned in the first place. All of this directly relates to the subject at hand.
You know what doesn’t relate to the subject at hand? Your random little “sjw gender terrorists” comment. But it does make it rather clear why you want to obfuscate the facts about Srid’s history with the project, subsequent ban, and continued amplification of drama and general shit-stirring ever since.
He literally gets up day after day with the seemingly sole purpose of fueling drama and causing problems
That’s funny because I feel like that’s exactly what all these self-proclaimed “gender terrorist” SJWs are doing to projects in the first place.
Why the whataboutism?
I had to look up what that word means. It sounds like calling something whataboutism could itself be considered whataboutism. Anyways, I was merely making an observation with no ulterior motive, I was not trying to discredit or shift any focus away from the original argument. Apologies if that wasn’t clear.
You made one reply to me whining that I attacked the person by pointing out his beliefs, and then made another reply to me about “gender terrorist SJWs”. Do you just lack any form of self-awareness?
My take on it is that the creator of Nix was very good technically but was not a good BDFL, and that was the root of the problem. He didn’t do a good job of politicking, stepped down, and now Nix is going through a bit of interregnum. I don’t think it’s likely to fail overall though, nixpkgs is too valuable of a resource to just get abandoned. I expect the board seats will be filled by people that know how to politick, and things will continue on after that.
Lessons learned is being a BDFL is hard. IMO Eelco Dolstra failed because he had opinions about things like Anduril sponsorship and flakes, and didn’t just declare “This is the way things are going to be, take it or leave it”. People got really pissed off because there wasn’t a clear message or transparency, which resulted in lots of guessing.
Thank you for your input! I would love to read more on this. Do you happen to know a good source wherein Eelco Dolstra’s leadership is discussed (as fair as possible)?
Unfortunately there isn’t one easy source that I’ve found. This is based on reading the stuff you linked to, as well as discourse/matrix discussions linked to from those sources. I compare it mentally to Guido van Rossum as BDFL of Python (though not any longer). He did a much better job of communicating expectations, like here
It made some people unhappy that there was no Python 2.8, but everybody knew what was happening. The core Python team also wasn’t surprised by that announcement, unlike with stuff like Anduril or flakes for the nix devs.
There was also a failure to communicate with stuff like the PR that would switch to Meson. The PR author should have known if Eelco broadly agreed with it before opening it. If there was a process that the PR author just ignored, the PR should have been closed with “Follow this process and try again”. That process can be as simple as “See if Eelco likes it”, since he was BDFL, but the process needs to be very clear to everyone.
Thank you for your insights! I appreciate it!
IMO politics have no place in technical discussions. Full disclosure, the last time I said this, my comment was removed for “transphobia”… somehow.
What you call politics (US political “issues”) and politicking (the act of seeking and organizing power or influence) are different things.
Maybe US political issues have no spot in tech but politics are a part of being human.
Exactly, thanks. “politicking” != US political issues
Building an open source project is not just a technical challenge. It’s a social one as well, and politics are a big factor in that.
Thanks for posting. I was unaware of current events. That’s quite the rabbit hole!
Doesnt matter because all the board members could quit and nixOS community can update the config and rebuild.
Are Nixos configurations compatible with this one?
As far as I can tell, they are 100% different. Guix uses Guile Scheme, NixOS uses the custom Nix language.
Can you link any good guides on transistioning to guix?
There’s some decent forks currently so I wouldn’t worry about the technology, but yeah the organisation is probably going to implode and reorg soon
the recent influx of so-called ‘immutable’ distros springing up like mushrooms is undeniably linked to and inspired by NixOS.
This is the usual (only?) solution - the idea forks or inspires a different community to take it further.
There’s usually no fixing a toxic person / community in either real life or online.
Eelco stepped down
lol no insight at all
NixOS not the major inspiration for immutables, consumer OSes like Android and ChromeOS are. But yes, NixOS has some influence even it don’t get the idea of immutable distros well.
NixOS not the major inspiration for immutables
Do you mean strictly mean ‘immutable’ distros with this?
consumer OSes like Android and ChromeOS are.
So, if I understood you correct, you pose that Android and ChromeOS are the major inspiration for ‘immutable distros’. Which, to be fair, could be true. Uhmm…, a quick search didn’t result on any conclusive evidence of this. If you will, could you perhaps help me find with sources that back up this claim?
But yes, NixOS has some influence even it don’t get the idea of immutable distros well.
Sorry, I don’t understand this sentence. Could you explain what you meant here?
Yeah, Android ain’t an immutible distro wtf
It’s just a regular distro where the owner (Google) doesn’t tell you the root password.
As I used to say. The Nix community acts more like a cult of people willing to support flat earth.
What does this mean?
It means that questioning decisions or problems is seen as negative in the community generally and that everyone else must be wrong for not using NixOS.
I don’t know what drama NixOS is having but I rather read TOS than reading that giant wall of text, so NixOS is clean in my eyes
I don’t believe in immutable distros. They are not well developed now so it’s a bubble that should pop soon after people realize they are not ready yet and have a lot of disadvantages. Also they are unsuitable for old PCs and Nix seems relatively good for them so I don’t think Nix will die completely but we’ll have to see.
Interesting take.
I don’t believe in immutable distros.
This seems more philosophical than on technicalities. If this is correct, would you mind elaborating on the philosophical side?
They are not well developed now
Even if this were the case, shouldn’t the constant development and continuous improvement result in something that’s (eventually) well-developed? The only way I could see this holding some truth is if by design the ‘immutable’ model (whatever that is) happens to be broken or something like that. Like, how some file systems are simply better than Btrfs (or any CoW filesystem for that matter) for specific tasks; i.e. ensure to use the right tool for the right task. So, do you pose that ‘immutable distros’ are by design not well-suited? If so, why?
so it’s a bubble that should pop soon after people realize they are not ready yet
So you (actually) acknowledge and imply that it will become ready at some point. Or not? Furthermore, like how do you reconcile this with Fedora’s ambitions for Fedora Atomic? Or how NixOS is going strong (perhaps stronger than ever) while it’s been in the making since before Ubuntu?
and have a lot of disadvantages.
And advantages*. Or do you ignore those?
Also they are unsuitable for old PCs
This is false. What makes you think that?
and Nix seems relatively good for them
What’s “them” in this sentence? The “old PCs” you had just mentioned? Or something else? Furthermore, if it is the “old PCs”, doesn’t this directly contradict with “they are unsuitable for old PCs”?
You have entirely misunderstood or intentionally misconcepted my comment.
This seems more philosophical than on technicalities. If this is correct, would you mind elaborating on the philosophical side?
There is no philosophical side. I don’t believe in them getting very major on desktops and laptops. That’s it.
Even if this were the case, shouldn’t the constant development and continuous improvement result in something that’s (eventually) well-developed?
Yes but the hype should disappear a long time before it happens. And that’s what I meant by the bubble. It’s very hyped, misunderstood and misused thing now. It will go away and then immutable systems will find their niche or die out.
And advantages*. Or do you ignore those?
This looks like an attempt to start a fight or act like the aggressive part of the Nix community. I said immutable systems have advantages and disadvantages (in the next comment I think) but you either didn’t read or decided to just fight instead.
This is false. What makes you think that?
Dual system partitions and Flatpaks are both not great for machines that use HDDs.
What’s “them” in this sentence?
Old PCs.
Furthermore, if it is the “old PCs”, doesn’t this directly contradict with “they are unsuitable for old PCs”?
It doesn’t because Nix doesn’t have the just mentioned disadvantages of immutable systems. Idk why you misunderstood this but imo it seems suspicious of you.
Thank you for the quick reply!
There is no philosophical side. I don’t believe in them getting very major on desktops and laptops. That’s it.
Alright. Thanks for clarification. Does “getting very major” primarily apply to adoption rate amongst users? Or does it primarily take into account adoption rate amongst distros?
Yes but the hype should disappear a long time before it happens. And that’s what I meant by the bubble. It’s very hyped, misunderstood and misused thing now. It will go away and then immutable systems will find their niche or die out.
Clear. Thank you. In your view, how should they be understood and used?
I said immutable systems have advantages and disadvantages (in the next comment I think)
I saw the part about advantages right after. However, I also noticed how the first disadvantage was written without nuance. The set of disadvantages and advantages that followed right afterwards was accompanied with “for some” (or something like that IIRC[1]). Therefore, to me at least, it seemed as if you meant that there were disadvantages overall. But some of these disadvantages may be perceived as advantageous to some. Which, I thought was perhaps more in line with the general outlook of your comment. Or at least, my understanding of it*.
Dual system partitions and Flatpaks are both not great for machines that use HDDs.
HDDs in general are not great :P . But, “unsuitable” =/= “not great”. So, this does not justify the (previous) usage of “unsuitable”. So, do you still stand behind the earlier use of “unsuitable”?
Old PCs.
Thank you for another clarification!
It doesn’t because Nix doesn’t have the just mentioned disadvantages of immutable systems.
Interesting.
I just noticed that I read your “Nix” as “NixOS”. Which is blameworthy*. Uhmm…, so I have to ask for some (more) clarifications then 😜. Did you strictly mean Nix; i.e. the package manager and/or language? Or NixOS? According to you, does NixOS fall into Nix; i.e. simply the system that’s built on Nix?
This looks like an attempt to start a fight or act like the aggressive part of the Nix community.
but you either didn’t read or decided to just fight instead.
Idk why you misunderstood this but imo it seems suspicious of you.
Fam. Chill. Please. I don’t intend to antagonize or whatsoever 😅. Like, the (overwhelming) majority of my previous comment were queries for clarifications and questioned related to how I initially understood them. There’s no need to make it more than that 😉.
All in all, thank you for clarifying and answering almost anything I asked. However, the following (I believe) still requires some attention:
Furthermore, like how do you reconcile this with Fedora’s ambitions for Fedora Atomic?
To clarify, from my understanding, it seems you regard/view ‘immutable distros’ at best as some niche. Which, to be fair, is absolutely fine. And perhaps you’re right; the future will tell. However, we know what Fedora intends for 2028; i.e. users of Fedora Atomic (and related ‘immutable’ projects led by Fedora) would constitute the majority of its user base. Furthermore, they’ve spoken since 2021 (IIRC) that Fedora Atomic (so likely Fedora Silverblue) will eventually become what people will install for Fedora Workstation. So, their ambition is clear. And their ambition contradicts with how you view it. How do you reconcile this with the fact that other distros (more often than not) join Fedora into whatever direction they depart? Examples of this include systemd, PulseAudio, PipeWire and some might even mention Flatpak and Wayland here.
- You’ve since changed your original comment (which is fair), so I’m not able to directly quote*.
OMG that’s a lot of comment lol. My brain is gonna melt when typing a reply to THIS in English. But I guess I can try.
Does “getting very major” primarily apply to adoption rate amongst users? Or does it primarily take into account adoption rate amongst distros?
Amongst users. It’s possible that every big and medium distro will have an immutable spin soon but it won’t be too popular.
In your view, how should they be understood and used?
I’m sorry but expressing my opinion on it greatly increases the chance of running out of energy which will make my speech absolutely illogical and ridiculous.
I saw the part about advantages right after. However, I also noticed how the first disadvantage was written without nuance. The set of disadvantages and advantages that followed right afterwards was accompanied with “for some” (or something like that IIRC[1]). Therefore, to me at least, it seemed as if you meant that there were disadvantages overall. But some of these disadvantages may be perceived as advantageous to some. Which, I thought was perhaps more in line with the general outlook of your comment. Or at least, my understanding of it*.
My brain always returns an “out of memory” error of the if/else solving module if I try to feed it this part so sorry if my response isn’t complete. I indeed made it look like the features of immutable distros are disadvantages to more people than they are advantages to. This is my opinion which might be biased since immutability goes totally against my workflow and the workflows I make for other people.
But, “unsuitable” =/= “not great”. So, this does not justify the (previous) usage of “unsuitable”. So, do you still stand behind the earlier use of “unsuitable”?
Worse for = not meant for; not meant for = unsuitable imo because there are just better options; this leads to worse = unsuitable. Maybe not completely unsuitable but at least definitely not good for.
Thank you for another clarification!
You are welcome and thank you for not being toxic like at least approximately 2/3 of people on Lemmy (according to my not-so-accurate research).
I just noticed that I read your “Nix” as “NixOS”. Which is blameworthy*. Uhmm…, so I have to ask for some (more) clarifications then 😜. Did you strictly mean Nix; i.e. the package manager and/or language? Or NixOS? According to you, does NixOS fall into Nix; i.e. simply the system that’s built on Nix?
Ok listen idk much about Nix ecosystem/infrastructure. I meant NixOS here. Sorry for the confusion. The habit of not including the “OS” ending comes from the Android community.
Fam. Chill. Please. I don’t intend to antagonize or whatsoever 😅. Like, the (overwhelming) majority of my previous comment were queries for clarifications and questioned related to how I initially understood them. There’s no need to make it more than that 😉.
I’m sorry, mister/miss. My attitude to the society, people in general and Lemmy users is negative and suspicious by default. I have my reasons and, no matter how controversial it is, I’m not going to change it. Most of the people by far are bad and toxic so it’s ok to make this assumption the default. Again I’m sorry that this my assumption caused inconvenience for you.
To clarify, from my understanding, it seems you regard/view ‘immutable distros’ at best as some niche. Which, to be fair, is absolutely fine.
It may not be a small niche but everything has a niche (even X11, Wayland, GNOME and Windows 10) so immutable distros can have a big one or a small one. As you said, future will tell. I don’t see them getting a large (more than 10-20% desktop Linux users) niche any time soon.
How do you reconcile this with the fact that other distros (more often than not) join Fedora into whatever direction they depart?
I don’t think it’s the case or at least I don’t have any information on it. Fedora just tries making new and very perspective stuff the first and the stuff always succeeded in the past. In the case of immutable distros, I feel like it’s gonna be some nice to watch chaos because new users will have to understand how to disable immutability to install drivers and fixes which means much more research (because most answers will just say “disable immutability for the directories that the fix needs” and the user will have no idea of any of that) and terminal commands. At the same time, immutable systems may be less suitable for advanced users who like tinkering. This makes a huge part of the Linux user base. Then I can say “told you” with pride. Though immutable distros are great for cases when the system must be limited to a certain task(s). On the desktop it’s the enterprise usage but idk how many % they are. I think it’s in the single digits.
Also we’re searching for the Lemmy’s comment length limit with these ones!!!
Excellent reply! I appreciate it.
OMG that’s a lot of comment lol. My brain is gonna melt when typing a reply to THIS in English. But I guess I can try.
Yeah lol. I’m sure we’ll (somehow) manage.
Amongst users. It’s possible that every big and medium distro will have an immutable spin soon but it won’t be too popular.
Aight. Thanks for (yet) another clarification. I obviously think that ‘immutable’ distros will heavily influence the future of Linux. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if all big distros will default to becoming ‘immutable’. However, that version of an ‘immutable’ distro may not exist yet. FWIW, it’s also (somewhat) in-line with Lennart Poettering’s vision.
I’m sorry but expressing my opinion on it greatly increases the chance of running out of energy which will make my speech absolutely illogical and ridiculous.
If anything, I’d love to read this. So please, whenever you feel like it, consider returning back on this.
I indeed made it look like the features of immutable distros are disadvantages to more people than they are advantages to. This is my opinion which might be biased since immutability goes totally against my workflow and the workflows I make for other people.
Fair. If it isn’t too much of a trouble, could you elaborate on your workflow? Like, are you constantly installing new stuff?
Worse for = not meant for; not meant for = unsuitable imo because there are just better options; this leads to worse = unsuitable. Maybe not completely unsuitable but at least definitely not good for.
I implore you to use other words going forward 😜. Perhaps I’m wrong, but to me, this seems like an example in which your ‘bias’ seeps through.
Ok listen idk much about Nix ecosystem/infrastructure. I meant NixOS here. Sorry for the confusion. The habit of not including the “OS” ending comes from the Android community.
Don’t worry about the confusion 😉. But thanks for your consideration! However, if I understood you correctly, this implies that you don’t consider NixOS an ‘immutable’ distro. Or at least not representative of ‘immutable’ distros. If this assumption is correct, could you elaborate on why you think that’s the case?
I’m sorry, mister/miss. My attitude to the society, people in general and Lemmy users is negative and suspicious by default. I have my reasons and, no matter how controversial it is, I’m not going to change it. Most of the people by far are bad and toxic so it’s ok to make this assumption the default. Again I’m sorry that this my assumption caused inconvenience for you.
No worries, fam. Again, I appreciate your consideration!
It may not be a small niche but everything has a niche (even X11, Wayland, GNOME and Windows 10) so immutable distros can have a big one or a small one. As you said, future will tell. I don’t see them getting a large (more than 10-20% desktop Linux users) niche any time soon.
Interesting notion on niche. Which I don’t think is necessary unjustified*. Though I am having a hard time coming up with a definition to how I understood your understanding. I initially thought of “everything that’s not (necessarily) mainstream”. But if you mention Windows 10 as an example, then that can’t be it. Perhaps “use” or “preference”? Could you (perhaps) define what you mean with “niche”?
I don’t think it’s the case or at least I don’t have any information on it.
Thanks for being transparent! Consider looking into the earlier given examples. Perhaps it’s even noteworthy to name some of the competitors that have perished against the alternative: Wayland vs Mir, systemd vs Upstart, Flatpak vs Snap etc.
Fedora just tries making new and very perspective stuff the first and the stuff always succeeded in the past.
Interesting. So, do you pose (as an alternative) that merely the successful is adopted? So they didn’t necessarily follow whatever Fedora did, but Fedora just happened to be on the winning team. Hence, the winner takes all.
Btw, what do you mean with “very perspective stuff”?
In the case of immutable distros, I feel like it’s gonna be some nice to watch chaos because new users will have to understand how to disable immutability to install drivers and fixes
On what ‘immutable distros’ is ‘immutability’ disabled for installing drivers? I don’t recall the last time “disabling immutability” was mentioned within the discourse for a legitimate reason or fix. At best, some people that don’t know how specific changes are meant to be applied on the specific distro they use, succumb to the infamous XY problem and try to do stuff the wrong way. But this is not a problem found exclusively on ‘immutable’ distros.
which means much more research (because most answers will just say “disable immutability for the directories that the fix needs” and the user will have no idea of any of that) and terminal commands.
Honestly, I have never encountered this. I don’t know where you get this idea from. I feel like you might have fundamentally misunderstood how (most) ‘immutable’ distros work. If possible, could you provide a link or anything in which that proposed solution is indeed mentioned most when tackling a specific problem found on an ‘immutable distro’?
Btw, I’m open to the notion that I completely misunderstood what you’re saying here. Therefore, if possible, could you mention your notion of what “disable immutability” entails. Like, how does that even work on something like e.g. Fedora Atomic?
At the same time, immutable systems may be less suitable for advanced users who like tinkering.
It depends. Some advanced users actually love the reproducible aspect that comes with (most) ‘immutable’ distros, because this enables them to tinker to their heart’s content without being afraid of losing a working system.
This makes a huge part of the Linux user base.
While I wouldn’t be surprised if this has been the case for the longest time, I do think that as Linux successfully attracts an ever bigger crowd, that eventually a huge part of the Linux user base will consist of normies. And, as it stands, I can only see them go for stable (by release cycle) distros or ‘immutable’ distros unless some other drastic changes happen in the mean time that enables your Average Joe to run a (semi-)rolling release distro without troubles.
My previous comment was perhaps too enthusiastic 😜 . I’d like to slim it down as follows:
- First of all, thank you! It has been a lovely interaction so far. Your clarifications have been very helpful!
- I’m still very much interested in how you think ‘immutable’ distros should be understood and used.
- If I understood you correctly, you don’t regard NixOS as an ‘immutable’ distro (or at least not representative), would you be so kind to elaborate on this?
- Some of your notions regarding ‘immutable’ distros don’t align with my own experiences; i.e. a user with over two years of experience with Fedora Atomic and who has played around with Nix. Especially the following parts:
In the case of immutable distros, I feel like it’s gonna be some nice to watch chaos because new users will have to understand how to disable immutability to install drivers and fixes which means much more research (because most answers will just say “disable immutability for the directories that the fix needs” and the user will have no idea of any of that) and terminal commands.
To be absolutely clear, these notions are (almost) alien to me. I’ve only come across these with new users that had fallen for the (infamous) XY problem. But that’s not even remotely representative. Hence, would I be correct to assume that your understanding of ‘immutable’ distros is relatively shallow? Which, to be absolutely fair, is totally fine.
Though, the possibility exists that your understanding of “disable immutability” is correct, but this particular phrase happens to be misleading instead. Hence, could you perhaps elaborate on what you mean with “disable immutability”? Like, how does that look like on any ‘immutable’ distro you’re familiar with?
Thank you in advance 😊!
I am sorry, mister/miss. Something weird happened to my Lemmy account and it was inaccessible for 2 days.
I’m still very much interested in how you think ‘immutable’ distros should be understood and used.
Immutable distros are good for cases when the machine is meant to be used for very specific tasks and applications while maintaining extreme stability and ease of updating. This includes OSes for ATMs, machinery control panels, enterprise office computers with very strict policies, educational computer class devices. I am not sure whether they are good for critical infrastructure such as aerospace industry and on-board computers so I can’t comment on that and it’s too early to do so anyways. Immutable systems can also be used for regular modern workspaces if stability (and possibly security) are preferred over absolutely everything else.
If I understood you correctly, you don’t regard NixOS as an ‘immutable’ distro (or at least not representative), would you be so kind to elaborate on this?
For me an “immutable distro” is defined more by its read-only (or R/W with write being disabled by default) root file system than by reproducibility or any other stuff. Afaik NixOS does not use any form of read-only FS so that’s why it is not an immutable distro to me.
To be absolutely clear, these notions are (almost) alien to me. I’ve only come across these with new users that had fallen for the (infamous) XY problem. But that’s not even remotely representative. Hence, would I be correct to assume that your understanding of ‘immutable’ distros is relatively shallow? Which, to be absolutely fair, is totally fine.
No matter how good your distro is, there always will be new users that need fixes or customizations that require extra steps and research on immutable (as in my definition) distros. This increases the chance of them giving up on Linux or creating angry/toxic posts on Linux related websites and communities.
Hence, could you perhaps elaborate on what you mean with “disable immutability”.
“Disable immutability” means “allow persistent changes for files and directories located in specific directories that are not in the /home directory/partition (“read-only” directories)”.
Thank you. Thank you.
I am sorry, mister/miss. Something weird happened to my Lemmy account and it was inaccessible for 2 days.
No worries, fam 😉.
Immutable distros are good for cases when the machine is meant to be used for very specific tasks and applications while maintaining extreme stability and ease of updating. This includes OSes for ATMs, machinery control panels, enterprise office computers with very strict policies, educational computer class devices. I am not sure whether they are good for critical infrastructure such as aerospace industry and on-board computers so I can’t comment on that and it’s too early to do so anyways.
I think we very much agree on this. I am actually surprised 😜. Perhaps we (possibly) only ‘disagree’ on the following:
Immutable systems can also be used for regular modern workspaces if stability (and possibly security) are preferred over absolutely everything else.
I actually even agree with this. But, and here it comes, you limit the use of ‘immutable systems’ when it comes to regular workspaces to just a subset that complies with “if stability (and possibly security) are preferred over absolutely everything else”. However, I’d argue it will soon become the preferred model for most people; simply because I’d argue the net positives dramatically outweigh the (diminishing) net negatives. And this ‘clash’ in perspectives is literally a philosophical/ideological one. Which, I actually tried to allude to in my very first comment. Btw, neither of us is right or wrong; as mentioned earlier, only time will tell.
For me an “immutable distro” is defined more by its read-only (or R/W with write being disabled by default) root file system than by reproducibility or any other stuff.
Alright. So, you prefer to refer to ‘immutable’ distro in the literal sense.
Regarding the status of the read-only (or disabled R/W) root file system, does this have to apply to the complete root file system; i.e. absolute? Or does it suffice if only a select subset of the system is read-only (or disabled R/W)?I wanted to ask this, but later on you made clear that a system does not have to be completely and absolutely immutable for it to be considered immutable; a couple of read-only directories suffices.Furthermore, is it required that an immutable system should remain immutable at all times for it to be considered an immutable system; i.e. changes are not allowed besides ‘hacks’? Or is it perhaps possible for a system to be deemed immutable if it only possesses immutability during runtime?
Thanks in advance for yet another set of clarifications 😜!
Afaik NixOS does not use any form of read-only FS so that’s why it is not an immutable distro to me.
Teaser; the Nix Store, i.e.
/nix/store, is immutable.“Disable immutability” means “allow persistent changes for files and directories located in specific directories that are not in the /home directory/partition (“read-only” directories)”.
Very interesting. So, on Fedora Atomic,
rpm-ostree install <package>would be considered “disable immutability”. Right? But, this does not apply toflatpak install <package>. Right?No matter how good your distro is, there always will be new users that need fixes or customizations that require extra steps and research on immutable (as in my definition) distros. This increases the chance of them giving up on Linux or creating angry/toxic posts on Linux related websites and communities.
To be clear, new users will most likely experience some issues on Linux for the time being. I don’t think that ‘immutable’ distros are immune to that. Nor do I think they’re particularly more troublesome. If anything, they allow for more stable experiences overall; which you seem to allude to as well.
Immutablity is like Wayland or Flatpak, ready for prime time for a subset of users and still in development which means they can only improve.
Wayland is meant to fully replace X11 and become the standard. Immutability as the idea itself has significant features that are advantages for some users but disadvantages or even deal breakers for others.
I can’t agree. Wayland should be THE display system we use. Flatpak can’t achieve full market dominance because the command line experience (especially for using cli apps) still sucks (and that’s where snaps come in to play). Immutable distros target an even smaller subset of users. Not only are they unsuitable for some use cases, but they’re also in complete opposition to some people’s workflows.
