| > but the second is to clearly describe a compelling reason for people to adopt. Build source straight from Git: nix run github:someuser/someproject
Need a different version? nix run github:someuser/someproject?ref=v1.0.0
Wanna replace some dependency? nix run \
--override-input somelib github:someotheruser/somelib \
github:someuser/someproject
Wanna fork: git clone https://github.com/someuser/someproject
# do your changes
nix run someproject/
And the best part is, it's conceptually very simple, it's mostly just a bunch of symlinks and environment variables behind the scenes. If you wanna inspect what's in a package, just `cd /nix/store/yourpackage-HASH` and look around.NixOS just feels like a distribution build from the ground up for Free Software. The "reproducibility" in every day use just means that stuff won't randomly break for no reason. And if you don't wanna go the full NixOS route, you can just install the Nix package manager itself on any other distribution. That said, the part where Nix gets painful is when it has to interact with the rest of the software world. Things like software that wants to auto-update itself really does not fit into the Nix ecosystem at all and can be rather annoying to get to work. There are of course numerous other pain points, missing features and all that. But being able to flip between versions, fork, compile and all that with feels just so much better than anything else. |