Thread

1. paulvnickerson · 1790685464 · focus · HN ↗

   They didn't have to go with NixOS...

   1. whizzter · 1790692949 · focus · HN ↗

      The NixOS foundation is Dutch, probably felt like a safe starting point (esp considering that the French has already gone that way).

      Besides, technically, if you're chosing an OS in 2026, it sounds like a good plan to start with a system that has many reproducibility, correctness properties and separated packages designed in from the start.

      Now, I'm not a NixOS user (altering mostly between win,fbsd,osX and some debians), maybe there's some horrible dragons lurking in using it in practice (do share in that case), but from reading about it sounds like a plan for a system used in a future where people don't need to curse too much about legacy decisions?

      1. muvlon · 1790693760 · focus · HN ↗

         Not just the foundation, the inventors of Nix and NixOS are Dutch too, it came out Utrecht University. Even the name is from dutch "niks" for "nothing", the snowflake came later and is basically a retcon.

         As for practical use, sure there are some rough corners (this is true for every Linux distro), but I don't think there's any horrible showstoppers. In fact it's particularly well-suited for use by organizations (as opposed to private individual use) because it's great for making highly customized but reproducible setups.

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