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by ZoomZoomZoom 1379 days ago
Try a buggy kernel and breaking your network in one `nixos-rebuild switch`, garbage-collecting older working generations and trying to fix your config back into working state. Great fun.

Other than that, NixOS is a godsend.
3 comments
colordrops 1379 days ago
Why would you garbage-collect older working generations without testing whether the latest works. You'd have to go out of your way to do that, and it goes against the entire purpose of it.
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ZoomZoomZoom 1379 days ago
Not every bug manifests itself right after reboot. You can easily have a bunch of generations you just think are ok.

The point is entirely different: if you update the channel-list you need the network for any changes to the configuration and I don't know of a way to go back to an earlier channel state.

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rgoulter 1379 days ago
> The point is entirely different: if you update the channel-list you need the network for any changes to the configuration and I don't know of a way to go back to an earlier channel state.

`nix-channel` does have a `--rollback` flag to it.

However, I feel that Nix Flakes would allow you a better experience. With nix flakes, the revision of the nixpkgs input is persisted in a lockfile. You could check this file in somewhere, and then getting your working directory back to a known working state is much easier.

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colordrops 1379 days ago
Once again, why wouldn't you keep the last few generations around? No network is required to use them.
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ZoomZoomZoom 1379 days ago
Answering your question: ENOSPC

This is not a support forum and we're not trying to diagnose and fix someone's issue. It's just not that hard to get into trouble with NixOS and there's still a room for improvement, that's all.

Reading on `nix-channel --rollback`, it should definitely help in some cases and I don't know how I missed it, maybe the docs weren't clear it's not tied to config generations or I just didn't pay enough attention.

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throwamon 1379 days ago
> You can easily have a bunch of generations you just think are ok.

Unless you erase your darlings: https://grahamc.com/blog/erase-your-darlings

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anotherhue 1379 days ago
I find switch to be a bad idea, better to build a new generation and reboot into it. Less inconsistency.
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anthk 1379 days ago
You can set Pop OS' themes under Nix based GNOME desktop with ease.
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