Nix has an ephemeral command to “install” packages to try out before installing permanently.
nix-shell -p <package> will install the package, and drop you into an ephemeral shell to test it out. Exit the shell and it’s gone.
It’s also possible to install permanently straight from the CLI, but that ruins composability. To each his own.
My bigger problem w nix is the lack of FHS and the hoops you have to jump thru to get a non standard app to work.
You can create account on a per instance basis.
Cheers
Yeah, for the restore process, I install a couple drivers for some USB devices. So a reboot is required. Otherwise, I has an alias for switch.
Data wise, it’s mostly the same. i use syncthing to a couple different systems, one of which is essentially a storage server. The main difference for me is the app installations. apt install all the apps, then configure each. Kills a whole day for me. I’m sure it can be automated, maybe ansible / salt / . But the way I use it, Nix enforces that I always update my configs in a manner that is easily restorable.
Copy my backed up system into /etc/nixos/
Run nixos-rebuild boot.
Reboot.
Setup syncthing.
?
Profit
Awesome. Welcome to the club. Be patient. It’s VERY different. The more you learn Nix (the language) the better off you’ll be. I’m still on that path myself.
This is similar to my story. I installed it on a laptop. Got really frustrated with it, and went back to arco for a while. Took the full plunge a couple months later, and decided I’m just gonna do it, torpedoes be damned. no regrets now.
Been daily for a while now, came over from Garuda, and a few other Arch derivative before that. NixOS is 99.9% fantastic. Lenovo carbon X1 Gen 6. Runs great. Newer custom build higher end desktop with AMD 7900RX GPU. Also runs great. I have a feeling it’ll run great on pretty much anything.
The package store is amazing. The package store absolutely dwarfs the AUR. That being said, it seems a lot of the store packages are support / dependency packages that you wouldn’t install standalone.
I always had a concern in the back of my mind with the AUR. Is the package trusted by multiple people?
I’ve not had to rollback much, but it’s SUPER simple, and takes seconds for the most part. A reboot at the most.
Things I wish I knew: I run declarative for everything, rather than imperative. Therefore, small changes are a tiny bit more of a hassle. Example: changing the hosts file. Rather than a quick hosts file edit and done, it’s a quick edit of the system configuration file, then a nixos-rebuild switch. Nearly any change is like this. (I’ve not moved to flakes yet.)
if you have any shell scripts, and they’re hard-coded to the env: #!/bin/bash, #!/usr/bin/zsh, etc… you’ll need to port those over to #!/usr/bin/env
appimages are well supported, but I ran into an issue where a custom appimage that someone else wrote won’t authenticate correctly because the browser isn’t included in the environment. I could t-shoot it more, but just too damn lazy to care.
The local storage location for apps can get huge rather quickly, as each iteration/change is stored for rollback purposes. Make sure to setup a garbage collection schedule with whatever your comfortable with.
Would i recommend? Depends on your patience and prior experience. NixOs is VERY VERY different than arch or pretty much any other distro, even other immutable ones. It takes a bit to get your head wrapped around it.
I saw someone say start with Nix (the package manager) on your current distro, learn the ropes, add in pieces like Flakes and Home Manager as you learn. Learn the Nix language. And then move to NixOS. Probably good advice.
I ignored all of that. Jumped in head first. Lots of frustration in the beginning. But now… I won’t be going back to a standard linux distro.
Immutability makes me warm and fuzzy. Being absolutely sure that I can easily recover from a boneheaded mistake. Beautiful. Hard drive shits the bed? Drop in a new one, apply my configs, and I’m right back where I was within 30 minutes, complete with all data, apps installed and configured? Priceless.
Joplin can do all that and has: Plugin support for nearly anything you want Runs on sqlite if you want to access the data direct Is 100% open source.