Is the fork still going to happen?
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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Sounds like a awesome fork, can't wait!
Nice! I'm really looking forward to this. I've been playing with nix for a while, but there were some things that prevented me from seriously adopt it (e.g. flakes are still considered experimental, but they are widely used).
Is Guix a cleaner base for a NixOS alternative ?
I think so. The language (Scheme) is a lot more logical to me, and the higher focus on reproducibility in the main channel compared to Nix (Guix can be bootstrapped from a tiny binary seed) is a draw for me.
They are very diverged projects, but share the same philosophy. The Nix packages themselves aren't the problem, its the organization backing them. So this fork is attempting to create better governance and organization, so that the good underlying tech can keep going and progress.
For example, Flakes have been held back from truly flourishing because the governing body has purposefully held back changes to those systems for nontechnical problems, but rather political conflicts with their proprietary offerings.
Think of the fork the same way we had the Alma/Rocky forks off of CentOS. Its political rather than technical, so keeping the same base tech helps adoption. Over time we can improve or replace parts of the ecosystem as the needs of this new project grow.
Sadly no AFAIK, even ignoring the licensing issues.
I would love to host a mirror of the ecosystem once the fork is underway. I made a small attempt a little while ago to create a mirror of the Nix repos but the documentation on how to set it up was lacking. Hosting a Debian mirror is relatively easy, Nix appeared quite a bit more obfuscated.
Nice. I guess there will be more news on their Mastodon account or their website at some point : https://hachyderm.io/@jakehamilton/112349915028065428
Finally!
I was just thinking about switching to Nix, but I have no idea what to choose now.
You should learn the nix lang, flakes, zero to nix, etc and try not to get bogged down in the Nix/Aux stuff. Be prepared to wait for things to settle down on that side.
I disagree with @[email protected] (sorry!) - the biggest issue right now is that package maintainers are leaving in droves - at least 15 contributors left a few days ago, a number which has likely increased these past few days - and will continue to increase. I think the only people left will be the ones who support Eelco and the toxic culture brewed by him.
What this means is that you risk your packages getting out of date, including slow delivery of security updates (which was already an increasing concern, due to the way the Nixpkgs build system worked). Worst case scenario, some (many?) packages may never even get an update.
So now's definitely NOT a good time to switch, and in fact I'd also urge existing users to look at other distros, at least temporarily until this whole thing settles down.
I disagree with @[email protected] (sorry!)
Don't say sorry for making an actual argument, or are you some Canadian lol?
at least 15 contributors left a few days ago
According to this list there are 3470 maintainers. Were those 15 doing so much work to warrant calling it the end of days?
What this means is that you risk your packages getting out of date, including slow delivery of security updates
A possible delay for some package updates vs certainly outdated packages in my native Debian. Not really a choice IMO
I've been tempted for a while to switch from good old reliable Arch (btw) to NixOS, but now I'm glad I procrastinated and just ran it in a little VM specimen jar instead.
I guess it depends on what you're planning doing with NixOS or Aux. I wouldn't use it for anything new and critical. I'd figure out a mitigation strategy if I were relying on it for something critical.
But for experimental purposes, neither option seems like a bad call.
Just use Nix and see where the drama goes in a year. I'm guessing your configs will be fully compatible or only require minimal changes, if the forks survive that long in the first place.
I'd suggest learning nix, flakes, and home-manager before going anywhere close to NixOS. This should help you out
This looks good, I'll switch over as soon as they decided on a hoster. I don't have too much experience working in open source projects, but I'll try to contribute what I can
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