[loveparade]

Or just use nix with home manager. Battle tested, lots of built-in functionality, works perfectly. Author claims the learning curve for it is weeks, but I had my setup up and running in a 1-2 hours at most and have been super happy with it.

[IshKebab]

This must be a different "just" from the just I'm used to!

Weeks sounds way more accurate than 1-2 hours.

[loveparade]

Now with LLMs it's even easier. Writing nix code is hard, but reading it is straightforward because it's declarative, so you can easily review what an LLM produces. And it's not much code either, a simple home manager setup is maybe 100 lines total.

1. Install nix / determinate nix

2. Tell your favorite llm to set up https://github.com/nix-darwin/nix-darwin with home manager if you are on mac, or just home manager if you are on linux

3. Review the code and ask for clarifications

You'll have a set up in 20 minutes.

[IshKebab]

Ah yeah I wouldn't count that as being a small learning curve because you haven't actually learnt anything.

Valid approach though I guess.

[loveparade]

I'd disagree. You're not learning anything if you close your eyes and tell your LLM "set up home manager" - but you'll learn a lot if you read the code it produces, ask clarifying questions, and actually try to understand what is happening. It's just a tool that helps you avoid doing tons of research manually by searching google, and helps you avoid dealing with ugly nix syntax.

[IshKebab]

Fair point.

[anuramat]

this looks like weeks to you?

  { pkgs, ...}: {
    home.packages = with pkgs; [ neovim lazygit ];
  }

[XorNot]

This is like when people complain about the locksmith charging $300 when it takes him 15 seconds to open your door.

[anuramat]

the door wasn't even locked

[IshKebab]

Yes, absolutely. It's not quick to learn because there isn't much text.

[anuramat]

it's literally just a list

[IshKebab]

It literally isn't. There's are at least three novel syntax concepts in there, and even if you just presented the resulting JSON data, there is still a huge amount of knowledge you need to know what Nix will do with that data.

[anuramat]

novel syntax concepts? like semicolons and lambda functions?

> know what Nix will do

you would also need a lot of time to understand what exactly happens in uv/cargo/npm/apt under the hood. if this is all that matters, you should just carry binaries on a thumb drive