More specifically, issues for one distro (or maybe family of distros if applicable) and not other distros.

I’ll start: NixOS. I love how I can have my whole operating system configuration defined deterministically with configuration files, but what I believe is a serious flaw, is when you choose the “unstable” channel, the channel for receiving the latest packages rather than ones up to 6 months old: stable. Unstable package often build dependencies on device, and I’ve often faced build failures, why are new package versions given if they fail to build?!

Why can’t Nixpkgs backend ensure that new package versions build successfully before shipping them to end users?! It would take a lot of work to do so, but I can’t think of any other distros that have this problem: where installing a new package version that came out a few days or even a week ago, has a chance of failing after its made available in the distro’s official package manager.

There are a handful of workarounds for your NixOS configuration in this case, but it happens too often for me and I shouldn’t have to edit my config for to work around it.

  • ultimate_worrier@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    23·
    6 hours ago

    OP:

    i SwItChEd On BlEeDiNg EdGe BuIlDs ThEn CaN’t UnDeRsTaNd WhY i NeEd To BuIlD tHe LaTeSt SoFtWaRe FrOm SoUrCe. It MuSt Be NiXoS’s FaUlT tHaT i DiDn’T bOtHeR tO lEaRn HoW nIxOs WoRkS bEfOrE sWiTcHiNg On FeAtUrEs ThAt ArE lItErAlLy LaBeLeD “uNsTaBlE”. pS. oH yEaH. bEfOrE sOmEoNe MeNtIoNs It, I kNoW tHe SoLuTiOn BuT wOn’T bOtHeR tO pOsT iT bEcAuSe I jUsT wAnTeD tO pUbLiClY sHiT oN aNd HaMpEr NiXoS’s ChAnCeS oF wIdEsPrEaD aDoPtIoN bEcAuSe It Is HaRd FoR mE. wHaT oThEr LiNuX dIsTrOs Do YoU tHiNk ArE rUn By UtTeR bOnEhEaDs ThAt BuIlD sTuFf ThAt MuSt Be FlAwEd Or WrOnG bEcAuSe YoU cAn’T gEt It To WoRk On ThE fIrSt TrY?

    # /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

nix.settings = {
  substituters = [
    "https://nix-community.cachix.org/"
  ];
  trusted-public-keys = [
    "nix-community.cachix.org-1:mB9FSh9qf2dCimDSUo8Zy7bkq5CX+/rkCWyvRCYg3Fs="
  ];
};