▲ 18 r/NixOS
What Do YOU Think Flakes Are?
So I’m not terribly familiar with TheLinuxCast, but the host of the show gave his review, on NixOS after using it for one year. What struck me was when he said that everyone explains flakes differently, and no one can seem to agree:
https://youtu.be/-7vISn5nnks&t=15m50s
Personally it was explained to me a few years ago that a flake is a package manager for your package manager. Because they standardize managing dependencies and versions of your packages.
How do you explain flakes? Even if you don’t like flakes, I’d still like to hear your thoughts.
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 3 days ago
▲ 3 r/NixOS
Nvidia Proprietary vs. Open Drivers
Hey everyone. I only recently discovered that I could use the proprietary Nvidia drivers for my RTX 4070 Super. My veeeery early testing is showing more stability for my Steam games without any noticeable loss in performance (Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark). So far there have been no game crashes, freezes, or file corruption. But I’ve only just started using it.
Does anyone have experience with comparing both drivers and gaming on Steam? I guess I’m asking if there are any cons to be aware of, or pitfalls I should try to avoid. I’m still new to Linux (less than a year of experience), so any wisdom would be helpful.
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 3 days ago
▲ 30 r/DistroHopping
Loving NixOS so Far
I’ve only been using Linux for the last 6 months and I am proud to say that 2 of them have been using NixOS.
It was quite a journey. I started using Zorin on an old laptop from work because Windows 11 took over 10 minutes to fully boot. From there I installed Bazzite on my gaming desktop, but I didn’t like it. Then CachyOS, but the frequent AUR attacks made me leave that hot mess. I tried NixOS for a few days before, but I bounced off it pretty quickly.
Then I decided that I still had a lot to learn before tackling NixOS again. Despite my failure I accepted that my brain just would not let this one go.
So I spent a week playing around on GLF OS, learning what I could. For those who don’t know, GLF OS is to NixOS what Garuda is to Arch. I wanted to try it out to get a sense of the performance I could expect if everything was set up correctly, and I was not disappointed. Of course the major downside of GLF OS is that everything is configured for you and you don’t get to change that. Still it was great research and at the time I wasn’t playing anything that advanced.
Now I have a comfig that works perfectly for my two very different machines. One draws packages from the fixed release branch while the other draws from the rolling release branch - using the same text file. One is set to use Nvidia settings and drivers while the other just ignores all of that thanks to a boolean.
It’s been two months and I’m 100% sure my distro hoping has stopped. I’m still very much a noob to Linux and NixOS but I’m enjoying all the tinkering and reproduction powers.
Just for fun, here is the tree of my configurations. Cheers:
~/.dotfiles
├── flake.lock
├── flake.nix
├── home-manager
│ ├── Aliases.nix
│ ├── cavalier.nix
│ ├── fastfetch
│ │ ├── config.jsonc
│ │ └── default.nix
│ ├── fetch.nix
│ ├── fish.nix
│ ├── git.nix
│ ├── home.nix
│ ├── kate.nix
│ ├── konsole.nix
│ ├── nix-index.nix
│ └── plasma.nix
├── hosts
│ ├── desktop
│ │ └── hardware-configuration.nix
│ └── laptop
│ └── hardware-configuration.nix
├── modules
│ ├── assets
│ │ ├── boot\_wallpaper.png
│ │ └── logo.png
│ ├── bootloader.nix
│ ├── chaotic.nix
│ ├── claude-desktop.nix
│ ├── configuration.nix
│ ├── de.nix
│ ├── fastfetch
│ ├── flatpak.nix
│ ├── graphics.nix
│ ├── hosts.nix
│ ├── \_kenku-fm
│ │ └── default.nix
│ ├── kernel.nix
│ ├── nclean.nix
│ ├── packages-flake.nix
│ ├── packages.nix
│ ├── plasmazones.nix
│ └── zram.nix
├── nixd.json
├── README.md
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 9 days ago
▲ 266 r/NixOS
Loving NixOS so Far
I’ve only been using Linux for the last 6 months and I am proud to say that 2 of them have been using NixOS.
It was quite a journey. I started using Zorin on an old laptop from work because Windows 11 took over 10 minutes to fully boot. From there I installed Bazzite on my gaming desktop, but I didn’t like it. Then CachyOS, but the frequent AUR attacks made me leave that hot mess. I tried NixOS for a few days before, but I bounced off it pretty quickly.
Then I decided that I still had a lot to learn before tackling NixOS again. Despite my failure I accepted that my brain just would not let this one go.
So I spent a week or so playing around on GLF OS, learning what I could. For those who don’t know, GLF OS is to NixOS what Garuda is to Arch. I wanted to try it out to get a sense of the performance I could expect if everything was set up correctly, and I was not disappointed. Of course the major downside of GLF OS is that everything is configured for you and you don’t get to change that. Still it was great research and at the time I wasn’t playing anything that advanced.
Now I have a comfig that works perfectly for my two very different machines. One draws packages from the fixed release branch while the other draws from the rolling release branch - using the same text file. One is set to use Nvidia settings and drivers while the other just ignores all of that thanks to a boolean.
It’s been two months and I’m 100% sure my distro hoping has stopped. I’m still very much a noob to Linux and NixOS but I’m enjoying all the tinkering and reproduction powers.
Just for fun, here is the tree of my configurations. Cheers:
~/.dotfiles
├── flake.lock
├── flake.nix
├── home-manager
│ ├── Aliases.nix
│ ├── cavalier.nix
│ ├── fastfetch
│ │ ├── config.jsonc
│ │ └── default.nix
│ ├── fetch.nix
│ ├── fish.nix
│ ├── git.nix
│ ├── home.nix
│ ├── kate.nix
│ ├── konsole.nix
│ ├── nix-index.nix
│ └── plasma.nix
├── hosts
│ ├── desktop
│ │ └── hardware-configuration.nix
│ └── laptop
│ └── hardware-configuration.nix
├── modules
│ ├── assets
│ │ ├── boot_wallpaper.png
│ │ └── logo.png
│ ├── bootloader.nix
│ ├── chaotic.nix
│ ├── claude-desktop.nix
│ ├── configuration.nix
│ ├── de.nix
│ ├── fastfetch
│ ├── flatpak.nix
│ ├── graphics.nix
│ ├── hosts.nix
│ ├── _kenku-fm
│ │ └── default.nix
│ ├── kernel.nix
│ ├── nclean.nix
│ ├── packages-flake.nix
│ ├── packages.nix
│ ├── plasmazones.nix
│ └── zram.nix
├── nixd.json
├── README.md
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 10 days ago
▲ 9 r/NixOS
/boot space
How large do you set your /boot to?
I’ve limited my Limine bootloader to only 10 entries, but I like to use specializations to have my kernel of choice (usually CachyOS) as well as the latest Linux kernel on every boot. That way if an update doesn’t respond well with something I’m doing, I can reboot to the other kernel and keep working or playing, until there is another update.
All this is to say that I set my /boot partition to be 3GB. That feels like a lot but the partition often sits between 1.5-2.5GB, so 3GB feels comfortable for my needs.
What works for you and your workflow?
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 12 days ago
▲ 19 r/NixOS
It Just Worked?!
To my astonishment, the old Xbox controller I plugged into my computer, to play the remake of Reaident Evil 4, just immediately worked with no further setup or configuration.
I know from other distros that such a thing can be a pain, so imagine my glee that I got to just play the game as it was intended…on Linux with an Xbox controller. Ok don’t look too close at that one.
Does NixOS just natively support game controllers, or did I just happen to install a package that also allowed for this capability?
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 26 days ago
▲ 9 r/NixOS
Borrowing Great Ideas
Like many of you I did not start with NixOS. Instead my Linux journey started on ZorinOS and it was really great to start from there, after +30yrs of Windows.
I mention my origin because a while back I decided to add Flatpak to my configuration and tried out Flatseal. But I just couldn’t get my head around it, and it to work properly. So I switched that for Bazaar, which I was familiar with because I played around with it on ZorinOS. I’m not saying one is better, just that one clicks with me more.
But that got me thinking that I already did this with my bootloader. I use Limine on NixOS because I enjoyed using it on CavhyOS, just like Bazaar on ZorinOS.
So I want to ask this community:
What features, or packages, or settings, do you use on NixOS because you enjoyed them on another distro? I want to be inspired to try other great ideas from distros I haven’t tried, and maybe likewise inspire others.
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 1 month ago
▲ 24 r/NixOS
Personal Level Up on NixOS
In all honesty I’ve only been on NixOS for a few months now so I know I still have a lot to learn. I only started using Linux with Zorin back in February. Still, I wanted to take a moment to look back and maybe encourage some other noobs (I’m still one of them).
Very early on it took me more than a day just to properly figure out how to change and configure the bootloader to Limine, and completing that made me feel like a wizard. Not only because I did it, but because I never had to do it again since it was already in my configuration file.
Now, months later, I’ve successfully built a dendritic pattern that can seamlessly be used on my gaming desktop, and my work laptop without any post configuration to make the rebuild happen. This includes:
•Having the laptop ignore my Nvidia.nix because it doesn’t have a discrete graphics card.
•Having my laptop not use PlasmaZones at all.
•And having my laptop look at the packages in my packages.nix file and installing them from the fixed release branch (26.05), while the desktop looks at that exact same list and installs them from the rolling release branch (26.11).
And yeah, I can say that I once more feel like a wizard. This would have been impossible without YouTube, helpful advice from this subreddit, and general googling.
Thank you all for your advice and encouragement.
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 1 month ago
▲ 5 r/PikaOS
PikaOS for an older laptop?
I’m thinking of giving my daughter an old laptop; ~8yrs old with integrated graphics. Would PikaOS work well for that, or is it only good for modern hardware?
u/Lonely-Scarcity-3387 — 1 month ago