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Why aren't more people using NixPKGs? (lemmy.world)
submitted 9 months ago by clemdemort@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Distro agnostic packages like flatpaks and appimages have become extremely popular over the past few years, yet they seem to get a lot of dirt thrown on them because they are super bloated (since they bring all their dependencies with them).

NixPkgs are also distro agnostic, but they are about as light as regular system packages (.deb/.rpm/.PKG) all the while having an impressive 80 000 packages in their repos.

I don't get why more people aren't using them, sure they do need some tweaking but so do flatpaks, my main theory is that there are no graphical installer for them and the CLI installer is lacking (no progress bar, no ETA, strange syntax) I'm also scared that there is a downside to them I dont know about.

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[-] excitingburp@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

I use NixOS on my personal machine and nixpkgs on my work Ubuntu (22.04 LTS). In the absence of NixOS I would not be using it: it somehow breaks all the file (open, save, etc.) windows, causing any app that tries to open one to crash (particularly annoying for browsers).

Not to mention the wrapGL issue.

It needs more polish on "genericlinux". I did previously use it on MacOS, and it did make MacOS almost bearable - definitely years ahead of brew.

this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
127 points (93.8% liked)

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