[ArinaS]

> "I don't want to care"

There are many distros for people who don't want to care - Ubuntu, Mint, Elementary OS, MX Linux, etc. I don't see how NixOS not being one of them is NixOS's problem.

> "I believe that the core idea of NixOS is fundamentally opposed to the idea of what the average person wants in their desktop."

What an average person wants in their desktop is Windows - not Linux and certainly not some obscure independent distro. And this is still not a problem of that distro or Linux.

[diggan]

> is NixOS's problem. [...] And this is still not the distro's problem.

It seems like the author is talking to people who might consider using NixOS for desktops, not towards NixOS itself. Unless I missed something in the article, the author is not saying this is a NixOS problem, but a "I made the wrong choice for me" problem, and now they're sharing the experience of reaching that conclusion.

Don't get me wrong, I (like many) have a love-hate relationship with NixOS, where I use it for all my servers both remote and at home, but my desktop/laptops remain on Arch Linux because I too don't fit it fitting for desktop usage. But I wouldn't argue against people who want to/not want to use it for desktop use, cool that it works or not for them.

> What an average person wants in their desktop is Windows

I think based on the context, the author is talking about the average developer really, not the typical end-user. They do say "someone who wants to use a computer like a regular person to do regular work" which might confuse people, but they really are talking about developers, as you can tell by the rest of the article.

[gray_-_wolf]

> talking about the average developer really, not the typical end-user

Average developer wants Windows (with WSL) or Mac. Still not Linux. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[diggan]

Highly dependent on your local bubble, obviously.

According to the latest Stack Overflow Developer Survey (https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology#most-popular..., which also is biased admittedly), it seems like for professional use, ~48% use Windows, ~32% macOS and 28% Ubuntu. ~17% also use WSL, which is basically Linux in Windows, so I guess you could say ~45% wants to (or at least, does) use Linux for work.

Seems not so clear cut as you seem to think it is.

[pjmlp]

I use WSL without really using Linux, although technically I do use it.

With that I mean, the only reason I use WSL is for running containers locally.

All the regular software, outside projects that require container based deployments, is straight Windows software.

[diggan]

> With that I mean, the only reason I use WSL is for running containers locally.

Yeah, you're probably not alone in using Linux specifically for containers since Windows cannot run them. Just like I'm probably not alone in using Windows solely for the purpose of running Ableton, as Linux cannot run it :)

[icecreammatt]

You can run Ableton as a non Steam game on NixOS. It was a bit of a pain to install in Steam and then update path to correct proton version but it definitely works. There are probably are easier ways to run it without steam but that’s how I got it working.

[pjmlp]

Windows has native support for containers.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscont...

Just because GNU/Linux has the biggest mindshare in containers, doesn't mean it is special in any regard.

In fact, my first experience with a container like deployment model was with HP-UX Vaults in 1999.

[OJFord]

I would expect that survey to be biased towards more Windows users, if anything.

[Retr0id]

I'm surprised how small Fedora is relative to Ubuntu

[pjmlp]

And before WSL, it was all about VMWare Workstation, or Virtual Box, since hardware virtualization became a commodity.

I don't dual boot since around 2010.

[necheffa]

> What an average person wants in their desktop is Windows - not Linux and certainly not some obscure independent distro. And this is still not a problem of that distro or Linux.

The average person doesn't even want Windows. They want to click a button and not be bothered with the implementation details.

That is why mobile/tablet is such a popular form of compute these days. People don't even have to learn the basics of interfacing with a file system most of the time. Want to look at pictures you've taken? You can be oblivious to the fact that your camera app puts picture files in a specific directory and embeds a date code in the file name, the photo viewer app takes care of that for you.

[Jarwain]

Just wait until LLM's and mcp matures; why tap tap tap your phone when you could just talk to Jarvis

[auggierose]

Who is Jarvis?

[OJFord]

I think it's a (fictional) AI assistant in Iron Man.

[Izkata]

15 years ago almost everyone would recognize the name because of the popularity of the Iron Man movies.

10 years ago Jarvis became a part of Vision in Age of Ultron and effectively no longer exists in the MCU. A variety of new AI assistants with new names were made in later movies.

None of the new ones became as recognizable, and I guess Jarvis is also falling into obscurity.

[OJFord]

Don't read too much into my only vague awareness (or person I responded to's unawareness) - I think I've seen one Iron Man film, or maybe only bits of it even. I'm just not into all that Marvel/DC/superhero stuff.

(And as a student I Saturday-jobbed at a cinema, so there's a certain era for which I've seen at the very least many odd scenes out of order for essentially all widely released films...)

[ninetyninenine]

I want the power of Nixos and not caring. I would like this experience both for the desktop and the server.

I said this one time on hacker news and a nixos fan told me that people like me should basically fuck off from the community because they don’t want people like me.

I used nixos for about a year for work so I definitely see the benefits of this but this ass hole attitude just made me sick of it. Like why can’t I have both? Is it impossible to have both? It may not exist yet but there’s a need here that would benefit everyone if it were filled.

Needless to say that thanks to that person I now really just dislike the nixos community. Rude and no flexibility in changing. Inevitably some guy might respond to this to apologize on behalf of the community and I appreciate that… but at the same time I think most members of the community truly have this attitude of keeping things hard and challenging on nixos and they don’t want things to change at all.

In addition to this.

Everything the guy mentioned that makes nixos hard for desktop can apply to servers as well. It’s not as if everything magically gets better.

[jzb]

I must have missed the part of the article where the author said it was NixOS’s problem.

If you want to use it as your desktop, nobody’s stopping you. They’re making the case why they think it’s unsuitable.

[indymike]

I’m not sure people care about their OS that much. I’ve watched companies change OSes and not miss a beat, and in many cases getting better:

* less service interruptions by using chromeOS over a cell carriers network instead of a failing internal network

* improved productivity from fewer OS configuration and update problems by switching to Macs

* Lower costs across the board due to better or less expensive hardware with Chrome and Mac

* Higher dev productivity in a small dev shop by requiring devs to use the exact same os they deploy code to (it forced the devs to learn)