NixOS’ influence and importance at pushing Linux forward into the (previously) unexplored landscape of configuring your complete system through a single config file is undeniable. It’s been a wild ride, but it was well worth it.

And although it has only been relatively recently that it has lost its niche status, the recent influx of so-called ‘immutable’ distros springing up like mushrooms is undeniably linked to and inspired by NixOS.

However, unfortunately, while this should have been very exciting times for what’s yet to come, the recent drama surrounding the project has definitely tarnished how the project is perceived.

NixOS’ ideas will definitely live on regardless. But how do you envision NixOS’ own future? Any ETA’s for when this drama will end? Which lessons have we learned (so far) from this drama? Are there any winners as a result of this drama? Could something like this happen to any distro?

In case you’re out of the loop. Though, there’s a lot that has transpired since but which hasn’t been rigorously documented at a single place; like how 4 out of 5 NixOS board members have quit over the last 2 months or so.

  • @ShadyGrove
    4•6 months ago

    I’m not the op, but I’ve been using guix for several months on a new fairly top of the line desktop PC and it’s going great. I’ve been able to play steam games and set up my dev environment with basically no issues.

    The catch is you need to use non-official repositories (i.e. https://github.com/nonguix/nonguix) to use the non-libre kernel and other software not on the official channel.

    There’s also this nice little search engine - https://toys.whereis.みんな/ - where you can look for packages from other repos (or channels as they are called in guix).

    I use Nix on my macos work laptop to set up my dev environment, but I definitely prefer guix so far, mostly due to the it being configured in guile over the weird nix language. The biggest advantage I see of Nix is that it has a bit more features and lots more packages.

    I am a pretty hardcore emacs user and lisp lover though, so ymmv.

      • @ShadyGrove
        1•6 months ago

        I chose the mirror cause I was just writing that comment super quickly on my phone. But uh, thanks for the right link I guess?