Nix (the purely functional package manager)

#nix Nix is a package manager available for Linux and MacOS (and apparently it can work on Windows via WSL too).

Some key features of Nix mentioned in this Nix guide are:

Multiple versions: You can have multiple versions of a package installed at the same time. This is due to path based exactly on what is being built being used for install paths (see also this Tweag article on content/input-addressed storage).
Complete dependencies: All dependencies have to be declared which helps eliminate issues like “It works on my system”.
Non-priveleged users can install software: A useful side-effect of the way Nix works, not particularly useful to me personally but still.
Atomic upgrades and rollbacks: It is easy to roll-back to a previous version of software, or even of the whole system if using NixOS.
Garbage collection: nix-collect-garbage will delete any unused packages.
Functional package language: The language defining the packages is a functional language. Here is an example:

let
  my-python-packages = python-packages: with python-packages; [
    matplotlib
    numpy
    # other python packages you want
  ]; 
  python-with-my-packages = python3.withPackages my-python-packages;
in
{
  # Let Home Manager install and manage itself.
  programs.home-manager.enable = true;
  
  home.packages = with pkgs; [
    python-with-my-packages
  ]
}

For more information see the guide.

Links to this page

Switching from macOS to NixOS (Talk, Sweden Meetup)

I had begun to use Nix (the purely functional package manager) and was really impressed by it. I was also curious about using Linux day-to-day (having used Windows then macOS so far), but I wasn’t particularly impressed with Ubuntu, Arch or anything else as it seemed likely to become tricky to manage if I was trying out different programs and setups in order to make it work for me. I thought those Linux distros (and indeed any Linux distro) would get messy. My MacBook had also gotten messy - in the sense that there was a lot on there (like old Haskell stack versions) that I didn’t use anymore but didn’t quite have the time to work out how to best uninstall it all. NixOS offered the solution - all my programs and system configuration could be defined in two text files with the ability to easily experiment and rollback if need be - ideal.
Switching from macOS to NixOS (Talk, Auckland Meetup)

I had begun to use Nix (the purely functional package manager) and was really impressed by it. I was also curious about using Linux day-to-day (having used Windows then macOS so far), but I wasn’t particularly impressed with Ubuntu, Arch or anything else as it seemed likely to become tricky to manage if I was trying out different programs and setups in order to make it work for me. I thought those Linux distros (and indeed any Linux distro) would get messy. My MacBook had also gotten messy - in the sense that there was a lot on there (like old Haskell stack versions) that I didn’t use anymore but didn’t quite have the time to work out how to best uninstall it all. NixOS offered the solution - all my programs and system configuration could be defined in two text files with the ability to easily experiment and rollback if need be - ideal.

#nix