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Dutch governments builds alternative for Microsoft based on NixOS

1021 points · 583 comments · fjfaase

solarkraft · 1790327717 · focus · HN ↗
Awesome! I believe NixOS is perfect for systems you just want to work and track reproducibly, like appliances (which a lot of server software is supposed to be). I’m glad people smarter than me are actually able to realize its advantages =)
In the same space, also check out openDesk initiated by the German Government (<a href="https://www.opendesk.eu/en" rel="nofollow">https://www.opendesk.eu/en) and La Suite by the French one (<a href="https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/" rel="nofollow">https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/).
AFAIK, there has been some collaboration with the German government on La Suite, not sure about the others.
1. skohan · 1790336306 · focus · HN ↗
  I recently got my feet wet with Nix for the purpose of agent sandboxing, and it's a really great concept!
  The issue I have run into is that for running llama.cpp, which is a very actively developed bleeding-edge software, it seems like experimenting with different versions/configs/patches etc. was fighting with the Nix philosophy of immutable software, so I ended up just managing it outside of nix.
  But this could be user-error, I've only spent a couple of weeks with it.
  1. rgoulter · 1790342445 · focus · HN ↗
    > The issue I have run into is that for running llama.cpp, which is a very actively developed bleeding-edge software, it seems like experimenting with different versions/configs/patches etc. was fighting with the Nix philosophy of immutable software
    May be. I'd guess it probably does it in a high-friction way compared to what you expect.
    e.g. in a typical linux distro, you can just replace the (globally installed) version of the package and use that.
    With Nix, you've got a declaration of how to build a package, including its dependencies; and each of those dependencies is also a declaration of how to build that package, and so on. -- And so, "just change this version" results in rebuilding the full chain of dependencies.
    If you want multiple readily-available versions of llama.cpp each with different configs/patches, then using Nix would make this easier I'd think. But for "I just wanna try this, then try that", it's going to add overhead.
    rounce · 1790344208 · focus · HN ↗
    It requires rebuilding the nodes whose inputs have been affected by the change, not the entire tree.

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