• tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        1·
        24 days ago

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_From_Scratch

        Linux From Scratch (LFS) is a type of a Linux installation and the name of a book written by Gerard Beekmans, and as of May 2021, mainly maintained by Bruce Dubbs. The book gives readers instructions on how to build a Linux system from source. The book is available freely from the Linux From Scratch site.

        LWN.net reviewed LFS in 2004:[19]

        Linux From Scratch is a wonderful project. It should become a compulsory reading material for all Linux training courses, and something that every Linux enthusiast should complete at least once. This would also create another interesting side effect: people who tend to be quick in expressing dissatisfaction on the distributions’ mailing lists and forums would probably show a lot more respect for the developers. Installing a ready-made distribution is a trivial task. Building up a set of 4 CDs containing a stable, secure and reliable operating system, plus thousands of applications, is most definitely not.

        • tehn00bi@lemmy.world
          1·
          23 days ago

          This just reminds me of my first experience with Linux in the late 90’s. Yes they had installers that got the base system working, but then you had to compile so much.

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    22 days ago

    I want to install fooFlorp2!

    check nixpackages:

    "
    environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.fooFlorp2 ];

    or nix-shell -p fooFlorp2 "

    edit configuration.nix, add pkgs.fooFlorp2

    install happens, won’t work, no mention about the binary

    Web search

    ohh you don’t install it with pkgs, there’s a systemd that has to be enabled, and some config wrapped around it.

    But the documentation said…

    The documentation doesn’t lie, but it often doesn’t give you the whole answer either.

    I love nix, but installing anything interesting ends up with a lot of websearches.

    On the upside, my home/work and travel pc’s are all just lockstep. anything I install on one just ends up on the others, and that’s something cool.

    • Grenfur@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      24 days ago

      What’s funny to me here is that, as a long time Arch user, I have been considering switching to NixOS. One of the most terrifying thoughts to me is that after using the same Arch install for 2 years I will spend ages trying to recreate it if I ever have to. Oh, that and Nix letting you test packages seems like a cool feature.

      • harsh3466@lemmy.ml
        0·
        24 days ago

        I’ve been on arch around a year now and also considered the jump to NixOS. I was actually dual booting it with arch for awhile and I found pretty quickly that the shit documentation was a huge turn off for me. I ended up nuking the nix partition and reclaiming it for arch.

    • Laser@feddit.org
      1·
      23 days ago

      Did you know that the suffix for nix documentation files is, coincidentally, .nix?

    • ne0phyte@feddit.org
      1·
      23 days ago

      The code of the packages is the documentation. So the newcomers better start learning Nix language and reading the paper about how Nix works under the hood before they get started! /s

      But seriously, I used NixOs for about 2 years almost 10 years ago and while it was/is fascinating when you have everything setup, getting there and maintaining everything across so many packages that each have their own way of configuring them took hundreds of hours. I’m back on Arch using a custom tool I wrote to fully manage my configs, packages, dotfiles etc.

      The way I remember it is that there is no consistency across Nix packages and it all feels like a giant puzzle for people who enjoy spending time configuring more than actually using the computer. And I say that as someone who actually enjoyed getting into that when I had unlimited time.

      • Laser@feddit.org
        1·
        23 days ago

        I dunno man. I spent way less time configuring my machines on NixOS because it just works. But in fairness, that is after I have spent a lot of time learning it (compared to classic systems that is, not a lot compared to NixOS maintainers who write way better module than I do). Now that there is a foundation, I just run the updates. It’s almost scarily stable. And the ability to group related settings together is such a bliss because you no longer wonder about “what did I do to enable X”, just open the file, it’s all in one place. Stuff that could be three completely different things (e.g. a service specific config file, a PAM entry and the service activation itself in effectively 5 lines. Want to do something for multiple services? Just map over their list. Etc

        I happily used Arch for 15 years and after trying NixOS on a decommissioned machine for one day I switched over everything as fast as possible. And I did try out Ansible on Arch, so it’s not like I didn’t try management via a tool. But using a system like NixOS just solves sooo many potential issues.

        It obviously comes with downsides, for example there is no quick configuration change. Changing something small requires another evaluation. Still worth it