Title: Boredom land with NixOS | |
Author: Solène | |
Date: 10 October 2022 | |
Tags: nixos life | |
Description: In this article, I share my feelings about using NixOS | |
daily, welcome to boredom. | |
# Introduction | |
I like to tinker with systems, push their limits, see how to misuse | |
them and have fun doing unusual setups. | |
However, since I mostly switched all my computers to NixOS, there is a | |
statement that repeats again and again in my head: NixOS is boring | |
# Is it good to be boring? | |
The open question may want a different answer depending on the context. | |
For an operating system, I think most people want a boring one which | |
work, and doesn't require having to fight it ever. | |
In that ground, NixOS is extremely boring. It just works, when you | |
don't want something anymore, remove it from its config, and it's gone. | |
Auto upgrades are reliable, in case of a rare issue after an update, | |
you can still easily rollback. | |
In two years running the unstable version, I may have had one major | |
issue. | |
NixOS can be bent in many ways, but can still get its shape back once | |
you are done. It's very annoying to me because it's so smooth I can't | |
find anything to repair. | |
This is disappointing to me, because I used to have fun with my | |
computers by breaking them, and then learning how to repair it, which | |
often involve a various area of knowledge, but this just never happen | |
with NixOS. | |
Most people will certainly enjoy something super reliable. | |
# The Biggest issue encountered in NixOS | |
Here is the story of the biggest problem I had when running NixOS. My | |
disk was full, and I had to delete a few files to make some room, | |
that's it. It wasn't very straightforward because it requires to know | |
where to delete profiles to run the garbage collector manually, but | |
nothing more serious ever happened. | |
# Conclusion | |
This blog post may look like an ode to NixOS, but I'm really | |
disappointed. Actually, now I need to find something to do on my | |
computer which is not in the list ["fix the operating system"]. | |
I suppose someone enjoying mechanics may feel the same when using a | |
top-notch electric bike with high grade components made to be reliable. |