MakeMKV (at least in windows) lets you rip a remuxed mkv without having to rip everything. So you can just select the titles, audio, and subtitle tracks you want without ripping all the other stuff. You don't need to make a full backup and then pull all that out.
The way NixOS is, the initial setup of all the different things you would want is incredibly time consuming and it has a very very steep learning curve. It was incredibly difficult for me to set everything up. I tried to make it work and then ran away 4 times now, each time starting from the configuration I’ve had so far, and building up on it. I still haven’t been able to perfect my configuration, and I’ve been on NixOS (this time) since mid-June. I haven’t been working on it actively, but I have done some work on it. NixOS is just too complex and too much for me to wrap my head around. Personally, I’m leaving it for something else, I’m thinking of Void, and I might go back to Arch for a while, I don’t know. Fedora seemed promising, but after the recent telemetry stuff, I crossed it off my list. Tumbleweed seems alright? I’ll see. But I totally get it.
I too think that NixOS is amazing. It is really unique (Guix is similar but not quite) yet it is very difficult to learn and maintain properly.
The main problem with NixOS right now is, in my opinion, the scattered documentation. You often can’t understand a topic without cross-referencing the manual, nixos wiki, nixos search (and nixpkgs and some scattered personal blogs if you’re really unlucky). But if you stick around and adapt to this it’s very easy to do stuff that takes a lot of effort on other distros with a few lines in your config.
While we’re on the topic: What’s a great resource to learn about flakes? I can’t seem to find a great answer that also shows why they are better and when.
They’re still unstable and fully optional. When you’re at the point where you could benefit from flakes, you’ll know it. Ignore them for now.
The most tangible difference to a NixOS user would be that they replace channels. If you’re contempt with channels, no need to rush to flakes.
Hey, sorry for the late reply. I found the blog by xiaoso quite good, and this one also isn’t too bad. But I never found one true source which explained it satisfactorily to me. It’s probably best if you just browse through other people’s configuration and piece it all together from that. From what I understood, flakes have 3 main uses:
They replace nix channels. If you want to switch between stable and unstable it’s pretty easy to do through flakes. Also, if you need any modules (like home manager or agenix, for encrypting secrets) you can simply import it as an import for your flake.
You can “modularize” your configuration. You can describe multiple systems in a single flake so you can have your desktop and laptop be built from the same flake, but with different packages installed. This is the part that I use most and honestly find most useful.
You can quickly have a development environemnt through flakes. You could use a flake per project, have all your dependencies as inputs in your dev flakes and never clutter your system with various dev tools
Nixos is riddled with stuff that you just “have to know” which can be quite frustrating. The lon ger you stick with it, the easier it gets though.
I’m personally very happy with tumbleweed. It’s been very stable, and has the built in rollback feature on the off chance an update played bad with your system (I’ve only needed to use it two or three times over the last few years across three different computers). Tumbleweed also integrates super well with plasma.
Ooh if you’re thinking of trying something new I recommend Alpine. An extremely underrated distro for a DIYer. It’s really lightweight and simple and its packaging system is a breeze to write packages for (for things you’d usually use the AUR for, since there isn’t an equivalant for Alpine AFAIK). Void is also fun I ran that for a year. Keep in mind, I’m only talking fun. For a good distro that will Just Work™, Alpine is fine, but I think Arch wins on that front.
NixOS is a journey and I have the privelage of having two systems, one “Home” system running Arch that I use usually and my “Roaming” system which I run whatever and is what I take to class and stuff because usually I only use it to take notes meaning minimum requirement is “Be able to log into a tty so I can write a text file”. So being able to use that for NixOS has helped a lot, since if something goes wrong, I can just ssh into my “Home” machine to get work done.
If you want to go for traditional distributions that don’t have native rollback mechanisms, I would suggest using btrfs along with something like snapper.
Flatpaks are great for GUI apps, and have a sandboxing system that allow them to work well on any system that support flatpak. This allows devs to package once run anywhere, saving Dev time! It also has a portals system to allow for better system integration of the granular permissions needed for the app to actually work (nobody wants a truly isolated sandbox for every app).
Snap is less featureful for GUI apps, but work closer to how native packages do. The real issue is the proprietary app store required for it, making non-foss. If you want the same benefits of snap, check out Guix and NixOS both of which have a more cleaner design, and work better IMHO.
@lemminer@fruitywelsh
Appimage is OK but no auto update makes it download and forget type of deal - definitely not for every app
Flatpak - best for me but permissions on some apps make it unusable e.g. gpodder - command for player as flatpak is unable to access MPV installed from repo flatpak etc. - sandboxing (couldn't fix it with flatseal mpv --profile=... not working)
snaps people love to hate them... no love from me :-)
Repo if it works, is available - the best option
9/10 desktop applications I use are flatpaks. Am on Arch and even when there’s an AUR for a package I’d prefer to use Flatpak. Just so I can use Flatseal to control permissions access on my applications.
For me the perfect example is GNOME Builder (I use KDE Plasma) but this package has it all. No, you dont need to download any dependencies, the sandbox handles it all!
That’s not all that different than a traditional package manager. You’re downloading the dependencies either way. With Flatpak, they’re bundled in. With a traditional package manager, it just fetches all the dependencies and shows you that they’re being installed one-by-one. Either way, it’s one command to install.
I’m far from an expert. But I think an advantage of Flatpak is in the case of different programs needing different versions of the same dependency. Flatpak keeps them sandboxed from eachother. And from your system. So if for example a program depends on Python 2, but your distro depends on python 3, you could install the Flatpak and not worry about it. Atleast I think that’s how it works…
Edit: I misread your comment. Lol I see what you’re saying now. My bad
You’re correct that Flatpak solves that problem, and there’s some value there. But you can also solve the problem by just having two versions of Python or two version of libjpeg or whatever installed, and then you as the user/admin manages ensuring that each program uses its correct dependency. That’s certainly more difficult, but I’ve just not found it to be problem that is both frequent enough and difficult enough to solve that I would personally value the tradeoff in overall complexity of adding Flatpak to the way I manage and use my systems.
The out of date problem you mention is something Nix contemplates. As of a couple hours ago, if you try to install Etcher (Balena Etcher, that is), you will get a message saying there’s an out of date dependency: Electron.
You can still try to install End of Life packages, but you have to type an instruction the ‘compiler’ tells you to type out. In other words, you have to be deliberate about installing out of date dependencies.
The other problem I understood it as “if I declaratively do this and then imperatively do that, how do I keep track of it all?”. If that is indeed what you’re asking, you’re right. That’s a problem. That’s why I try to keep everything in the config.
I’ve been using Nix now for a couple of months and the configuration file has been a great friend. Sometimes I don’t know how to configure something and I get lost and worried, but the community has helped me to fix my problems- .
I guess I could’ve worded this better but my second problem was: I would like to do everything declaratively. What do I do when a package doesn’t have its own declarative configuration options? Before it was simple because it was imperative, so I could just change the config file, but not so much in NixOS.
You can still imperatively edit configs for packages where you don’t have / aren’t using the declarative config. You’ll just have the same reproducibility issues that you’d have on other systems. In general all the declarative NixOS modules do is generate the config files you’d normally write yourself, sometimes with some extra error checking. I’ve been doing this for my neovim config because I haven’t cared to port it to the module’s way and I want it to work on systems without nix.
Any package can be “edited” using its overrideDerivation function. You can pass new configureFlags, buildInputs, a new src, etc. It’s all additive too, so when something else about the package changes in Nixpkgs, that’ll propagate to your “edited” package too.
Dang, Suse really coming in strong with this. I still wish they offered openQA too. Between Rancher, and Suse they really do go pound for pound against RedHat.
I just made a post about my musing on NixOS so maybe read that? (here) Basically after the main learning curve it’s pretty easy to use.
I’m getting the hang of their package manager as well, so if need be I can make my own (Like I would for Arch. The AUR scares me from a security standpoint).
My main advice is to not go against the curve. If the manual says that NixOS does it that way, do it that way, because going against the grain is like going through a cheese grater in this OS.
Unlike Arch where you can do things as you want, in Nix you do things using Nix. You can almost always accomplish what you want, but it’s gotta be done the NixOS way. This is actually a benefit rather than a problem once you get used to it, because it starts becoming second nature, and it is extremely powerful.
Before I could fully leave windows, I spent a lot of time being lost in Linux distrohopping and ricing without even fully understanding what I was doing. Without a solid setup to live in, Linux had a weird experimental feel and it got frustrating when I wanted stuff done.
Coming to your case, there are 2 different priorities here: daily driving and Linux proficiency. You’re tied into windows for the daily driving bit for now so your main focus should be learning, and that probably won’t need a dual boot right away.
First up is understanding why there are so many distributions. Linux is the kernel, the common skeleton that you can’t use on its own. There are other modular bits that go on top to make a full fledged OS, and the choices of what those are is what makes a distribution. Learn more about the options available for the modular bits - the ones that you should concern yourself with for now are:
package managers: the program responsible for installing and managing software. This is one of the main differences between the major popular variants of Linux(Debian, Arch, fedora etc). For example, on Debian and distros based on it, you’d use apt. That’s why you would’ve probably used apt on Ubuntu, it’s based on Debian.
desktop environment: all the programs involved with the user interface - the main UI itself. This is a subjective thing and people use different desktop environments based on their workflow.
Once you get this modularity based perspective, distributions wont be overwhelming and vague. You’ll understand why people are recommending mint or popOS:
it’s Ubuntu based and there are many popular Debian and Ubuntu based distros out there. You’ll be able to get software easily and if there’s some problem you need to debug, there’s a relevant question and answer out there
mint’s desktop environment is cinnamon, which is simple, clean and not too jarring for people coming from windows
You’ll also know, you can choose whatever you want as long as it’s Ubuntu based for your learning phase. Only at that point I think it will make sense to dual boot. You can boot in for particular reasons instead of a vague “let me understand Linux”. The reasons will be finding alternative software to daily drive, learning how to use the terminal or just getting comfortable with Linux in general. From there, you can find your own way or reach out to the community with questions specific for your use cases.
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