 I'm your host Matt. Welcome to the Linux cast guys. We're back second episode of the year Two in a row. We're on a streak. My goal is to do at least one more episode than we did last year So we did 37 last year. So you should do pretty good. So anyways That's beside that. You guys gonna have to live when I've been up since like 7 30 this morning you had to get up and shovel snow and There's just not enough sleep in this brain. So I'm gonna be a little weird today I'm just gonna point that out. So anyways, so this is the Linux cast. We talked about Linuxy things. That's what we do here Today, we're gonna be talking about Nick's OS now before we jump into the Foss of the week thing. I know what you're probably thinking Matt. Didn't you guys just do a Nick's OS video in like December? Yes, yes, we did. We did in fact do that but at that point neither one of us had used it for very long And we've talked about it, you know off-camera and in various places over the course of the last couple weeks And Tyler's been on it for a few weeks now and I've been using it for a few months And I figured it was we can sit down and have a more in-depth more informed conversation about it then We did back and when we did that episode back in December or November whenever it was so I think that that's going to be okay So if you are not interested in Nick's OS and you're like god All this Nick's OS content is just horrible talk about arch for the love of all is holy first all no No, we're not gonna talk about arch and no josh. We're not gonna talk about gen 2 either Open Susa is open for discussion. We can talk about open Susa. But anyway Anyways, we're gonna talk about next but before we do that. We're gonna jump into our weekend Foss So Tyler, which you've been up to this week in open source Well, actually It it is definitely related to open source, but it's related to main topic I've been massively improving my Nick's OS flakes or flake and Kind of streamlining it because Before if you wanted to have like my Nick's OS configuration You'd go and like pull down run a build script that would copy over stuff Do a whole bunch of things and then when Now the way that my flake is is all you have to do is copy over your hardware configuration or generate one and put it in and replace the Default like hardware configuration that I have for my systems And then rerun the flake command But before you would have to go through also into the flake.nix make sure you change your username You know hostname or know your username then you'd have to go to the home manager change your username and stuff there Then go into the workstation configuration file change your username configuration all that kind of stuff there Now I've kind of streamlined it inside of my flake.nix I have variables that you can set for your username hostname get username and get email and I think I've I may have added even one or two more so Pretty much all of the variables that you might need to change for your system I'm trying to put inside of the flake to just keep it simpler so someone just has to clone my My flake and then change the variables inside of that flake.nix Put in their hardware configuration Inside of the laptop or workstation config whichever one they want to run And then run the command and you're done some people I have had one person that had some issues But most most people that I know of that have tried my flake have had it work and be just fine. I know quite a few so That's what I've been up to and if you're happy to be watching this and you're somebody who has had issues with my flake and You know, you're you're struggling just reach out to me I'd be more than willing to talk with you and help you out with any issues you got No problem Also, if you're not about this nix os content definitely go Definitely do not go check out my youtube channel. There's a lot of nix os videos being published and like uploaded right now so Tyler's going to be the nix os guy. He's going to get called out on mental outlaw and then a week later Won't be using nix os anymore Is exactly how it'll work Can you know that because it's happened before That was the best thing ever Let's just shout it out by the the largest youtubers that does this kind of content and then Not do the content he shouted you out for Anywhere, that's great. So like for anybody who doesn't know like mental outlaw Shouted me out for my open bsd content right after I had switched away from using This is the best thing ever All right, so Me I have been having window manager add is the best way to describe this so So So for those of you guys who don't know darth vader who's in the chat has challenged me to use the same color scheme for a year It's the most challenging challenge. I've ever had in my life And you wouldn't think so and I was like it's just you you you got to I got to choose the color scheme that I use And he didn't even choose it for me. I chose it for myself and You think that you know Easy peasy a lot of people do that well not me. I changed my color scheme like two or three times your day I think I talked about this last week But because I haven't been able to actually be happy with you know switching around my the look and feel of my That's up. I've been having a hard time With the window manager that I'm using so I've been trying to find a different window manager because I've been using xmonad now for a couple months and I still I'm still very iffy on haskell, but I'm getting used to it, but I wanted to try something different So, you know, I spent an entire day just for fun really I just spent an entire day patching dwm didn't even plan on using it. I just wanted to You know patch it because I'm a nerd I did that I did that I got out of 30 patches before I couldn't go any further No, I know I got it. I was like, I'll just use flexi patch You can add as many patches as you want. Well, it's it's more it's not fun Just selecting a whole bunch of ones and zeros. I wanted to actually patch it so I did that And then I messed around with hyperland for a little while broke hyperland Good, very good. I like broke as in no longer working so That like I was going to give that a try but Ended up breaking that and and much too lazy to fix it So then I went to so Nuggy bus in the discord Was talking on the linux user group that we did this past week more on that later and we did He said, well, why don't you just use i3 and I was like well because it doesn't do workspaces like xmonad or qtile He goes well, I think I can fix that So he did he wrote an entire script system for to start working like xmonad and qtile when it comes to workspaces So I use qtile for I use it. So I used i3 for about I don't know 12 hours or so and I was like you want some of the the themes for poly bar that I have would actually work okay with xmo bar So I went back to xmo nad which is where I was trying to get away from the begin with So I've used like six different window managers in the last week. It's not great Anyway, so that that's that's that the other thing that I did this week is that we had our first linux cast sponsored linux user group on Thursday we had probably about 20 people show up or so people came in and out So it's a little hard to know who exactly all showed up But if if you did show up, thank you for showing it was a wonderful time. We had a great time We talked everything from distros to ai to Some you know backs some inside baseball when it comes to YouTube and stuff like that. It was a really good time And if you want to so we're going to be doing that twice a month from going on So we're doing it the second Thursday of every month around 11 o'clock p.m Or a m eastern time 11 o'clock a m eastern time And then to catch the people who can't come in the middle of the day We're going to be doing it every fourth Friday at 8 15 p.m eastern time all that's on the discord all the information is on the discord So if you want to join us for that, you'll have to come and join the discord I know not a lot of some people don't care for discord But if you want to join the linux user group that i'm sponsoring or what they were doing You have to don't join that so and it was very fun. So I will say it if you're not a big fan of discord It's okay. Make a throwaway account and just come in for it. It was very good I was almost late to work Because of that linux user group We could definitely we could have easily talked for many many hours But my my limit of sitting here for is about two hours and then I have to get up and move around So I can do actual work But like I was so distracted with the conversation I couldn't even say like oh by like I literally went up and then just Yeah, I had to leave for work When I was there and then he was gone it was like poof He was gone Anyways, it was it was very very fun If you want to join the link for the discord will be in the description of both the Livestream and the video that goes up on monday as well as the audio version They'll go up on monday as well. So I'll check that out if you want to join us So that's what I've been doing this week in open source and all that stuff. So We're on to the main topic. So like I said, we've talked about nix os many times before But I wanted to see if we can't get you know, kind of dig a little deeper this time and talk about it Because I posted a short yesterday of us talking about nix from the last podcast And we made a comment about it not being a linux distro and boy did that piss a lot of people off Yes, like it made a lot of people very very angry. I like all it uses the linux kernel therefore ipso facto I like pardon me. Well, I you know become a nerd. Yes It uses the linux kernel But we made this comment and I kind of want to talk a little bit more about it Get more in depth about nix os just a little bit because it is one of those distros that has become At the forefront of the linux community and I think that it's important for us to talk about that when it happens So Tyler you've been using nix os for the Like what the last like three four weeks now almost a month. Yeah I think it has been a month. Let's just everybody pause for just a second and acknowledge that tyler The one of the top three distro hoppers that I know Has been using the same distro for a month It's insane. It's like it's almost impossible. I would have bet money against it That's you know so well, it there's been a lot to check out about it and I am glad that we're starting off on this note because I I actually had a conversation with Or other people last night About exactly what we're talking about whether or not Nix os is a Linux distro and I think we talked about it for quite a while and I think we all came to the We all agreed that it was kind of a semantics argument where Yes, by all by all definition and technically nix os is Regular old Linux distro that get it it it it has all of the points to be a Regular linux distro and it is by definition a linux distro the I think we we dived a little deep in the conversation and in talking about how nix os was The problem with calling it a linux distro is that when you do that typically people group in other distributions In that statement like gen 2 arch and other ones and it's nix os is It's so different that when you do that people obviously Are led to believe that it's going to function somewhat similar to those distributions And it doesn't almost every other linux distribution is I believe the term is called imperative where you actually Run commands or you have a software GUI that runs commands in the background and those commands install programs On nix os you don't do that like everything is declarative inside of files You can run commands and install programs, but typically you're doing that inside of a As far as I know like again, I'm not a freaking nix os Developer or someone who's been using it for a very long time and it's very well versed in all the definitions But from what I can tell a nix shell and a nix environment are Like semi virtualized environments like your nix shell is a shell that you can use for development But it's not it's not system-wide and it's not going to be there Like all the time same thing with like an nix environment So these are Separate places on your system than your entire system config So like when you go and run commands to install something you're doing it inside of a separate shell Then your main one that your system actually runs from so The next time you reboot or do a logout or something like that you're All all that stuff that you just did is to most people completely gone Like I believe within a nix environment you can just pull it back up like but you You still have to re enter that environment to have access to all those programs you installed so Like it makes it it makes it very difficult to talk about nix os like every other linux distribution because Obviously that leads people down a bad path where they treat it like every other linux distro and then are confused As hell is why it's not working properly, you know Compared comparatively to the others Oh, so the way I okay, so here's the funny thing is we always talk about beginners linux distros Right, you know boon to zora and linux mid or whatever But in in reality, there's not a beginners linux distro if you if you're a brand new to linux And you want to go run gentoo you can go run gentoo the documentation is very good There's a lot of people out there that can help you if you get lost You know, there's a lot of tutorials and all this stuff and if for being honest about it installing gentoo It's not really that difficult and once you get it up and running It basically works like any other linux distro. Yes, you compile everything. Yes, there's use use flags and stuff like that So those things are a little bit different But you know the etsy directory is where you'd expect the etsy directory to be you can manage your dot files The way that you want to manage your dot files or whatever everything works You you can take basically everything you would learn running gentoo and use it on arch or a boon to or whatever Obviously, there are going to be some things that are different, but for the most part Those two all those things work exactly the same So if you want to be a beginner a begin if you're a beginner and you want to use whatever distro you want to use Basically all of that no matter which one you choose You're going to be learning the skills you would need To be able to transfer those to another distro should you decide to distro hop So if you start with arch and you learn all the things that you want need to learn about arch And you end up switching to open susa or You know ubuntu or whatever you have gain gained skills That you need in order to you to you know use those distros as well while you were running arch The same camp of all the distros the same cannot be said for nyx os right you if you start on nyx os Which you can do it's very easy to install It's not as hard as it used to be you can use the calamari as installer and if you Can suss out enough from the really crappy documentation so that you can actually thank you buddy I agree you tell him buddy Anyways, if you can suss out enough from the documentation where you can install applications And just use it like a regular distro that way You can do those things and you'll probably be able to learn but you can't Take those skills that you're learning on nyx os and easily transfer them to another distro Because they work differently like you install software differently. Like you said, you know, you do updates differently There's different tools you you manage your dot files differently everything is slightly different Especially if you start learning more about your root file system and stuff like that because they're not The same they're just completely different now those files do exist You just have to learn about the nyx os store file directories and stuff like that. They're all there They're just in a different spot. They're all It's a crazy mess of sim links basically is what we're looking at here It's really really weird and they've done it in a completely different way than everything else has done it And that is when I say all this stuff You've experienced this when we when you say Something that is absolutely true But it comes off in a negative light people think that you're saying that what you're talking about is bad Like people think that I hate nyx os like I don't hate nyx os I think nyx os is just different And While me personally I've been using it now since like november or maybe even october I don't personally see the Benefits to running it. I don't think that it's bad I just think that it's different and i'm not sure that deserves the hype that some users You know heap on it, but that's a conversation We've really kind of already had but I think my biggest issue when answering the question Is it actually a linux distro is that just like you said if you call it a linux distro Then people assume that it works like a linux distro and it does not do so now the thing is that Do people really make that assumption because if the thing is about Me me personally as I assume people are morons Like people are just absolutely stupid to if I look at you I just assume that you're dumb And then you have you you have to approve you have to prove to me otherwise that you're not dumb I know it sounds like an asshole thing to do and it is an asshole thing to do but Over almost 40 years of life. I've become very cynical about people in general for the most part. I think people are stupid, but That's a that's uh some colored glasses of the way that I look at the world, right? It's not actually true Most people are actually fairly smart if you're gonna install next west chances are you know that it's different, right? You probably know that it doesn't work the same way that other things do and if you don't you're gonna find out very very fast Like you like you're gonna find out within the first few minutes of using it that it's different so I I don't think that I go ahead I I I do think there is a valid point like I I don't think it has anything to do with whether or not someone's stupid, but I do like I do like your perspective on it treat Treat any go into any situation like you might be talking and explaining something to a moron because that's probably the way that you don't overlook any small things and you know Just don't don't give someone proper advice that might need it so like I get that the the thing with like it The problem with bringing it up in In common conversation with other distributions is I do think people I don't think it has anything to do with whether you're not you're smart or anything I I think when we bring up nyx os in something like comparing it to arch like People do assume on some level that it's going to work similarly like The reason arch gets brought up around nyx os a ton is because with the nyx package manager You have pretty much everything if not everything that's in the a you want so Most people who are running arch Stay on arch because of the a you are and then if you wanted to move to something like nyx It'd work out great because you're not going to lose out on all those packages or have to Go and get them from somewhere else or build them yourself nothing like that so It gets brought up a lot and then when people go into try nyx os like I mean things aren't even put in There's a term called nyxifying and like Your whole systems moved around the things are in different places Most things are referenced from the nyx store And so when you're going to look for a binary and you're finding out that everything is coming back in this nyx store with this Huge like uuid looking hash You're like what the heck is going on like so I I think it's one of those things where there's I don't know it can it can be deceptive when talking about it with other distributions and very much so because I mean nyx is very different than something like arch But the package availability is pretty much the same So like you like you know like that's kind of the problem with nyx is like you'll Reference other things because it it has similar like Things that people might be looking for who are using something else But like the underlying concept and mentality around how nyx works is Well, I mean fundamentally different all the others So kind of a problem My problem With a lot of this stuff is so you remember When elementary os was really a thing. I mean it's still around obviously, but very few people actually use it One of my biggest problems has with with elementary os was that they always they have this Dedicated design thing and they they tempted developers into Developing applications that basically worked Best on elementary os But you had a whole bunch of applications like planner and a few others that I just don't really remember That really if you wanted to run them in their proper form you'd have to do so on elementary os And one of my arguments against that thing Despite, you know developers being able to make more money by doing so was that it ruined the openness of Linux where if I want to run application on one system I can then distro hop and run the same application and it looks and works basically the same When when you have When you have things that run only on a certain you know distro And it's not easily transferable from that distro to other distros it ruins the Interstate highway feeling of your of the the whole ecosystem of Linux to me because you know, you can If you want one some use something one way on one on one You can easily use the same thing on another because they're basically the same They're just doing things in slightly different ways nix os for for me feels that way you can Use nix and learn all you can about nix and it's not even just about the knowledge that you can't therefore transfer over To you know another distro that it's not as if you can't go and learn how other distros do things people can You know There's enough hard drive space in your brain where you can learn how to do nix things and you can go learn gen 2 and Linux from scratch If you want to you can do both things it's fine but Because you have dedicated yourself to using things like home manager influx or whatever you can't easily take those things With you to another distro you can but it's going to require quite a bit of work You know because they're not easily they're not easily transferable because nix does things so differently that you basically have to Sculpt your workflow and your organization around the way it does things and the organization of other distros are Is just different so if my biggest problem with nix isn't that it's you know bad Or that it does things, you know in a certain way or you know, whatever it's just that It here's gonna here's a here's a metaphor or whatever that is going to piss some people off. It reminds me of emacs You know emacs is really good And I had to hold my nose while I said that but if you spend a lot of time in emacs and you get really Delved deep into the emacs ecosystem, you know you get really into org mode and org agenda and rome and All of this stuff right you get used to it, but all of a sudden you decide for whatever reason you're going to switch to vim Getting out of Emacs mode is going to be really hard because all of your files are in org And guess what vim doesn't do Org yes, you can if you put effort into it take those org files Transfer them over into a format that vim understands or I'm actually probably sure that there's a vim plugin that does it but whatever you know out of the box vim is not going to see those things and You know, it's kind of like a wall garden. It's not really a wall garden You can take this stuff out if you want to but it takes extra effort To take that stuff out of emacs and put it somewhere else so you can actually use it That's my problem with emacs is that it feels like it's sucking you into using emacs as much as possible Nix is kind of that way like if you're going to use next kind of like you have tyler you've Fallen for the next stuff and you are doing nix in the way nix is supposed to do You're doing flakes and you got home manager and you all that stuff And you've admitted that it's completely different than everything you've done before The more you get into it the more you get into doing that stuff the harder It's going to be to one day decide you're going to pack up your shit and just go to ubuntu Because you know, you're no longer using the same the You're no longer doing the things the same as you did when you were using a traditional distro So that ability to move around I think is what nix hinders And that bugs me a little bit now obviously it doesn't bug everybody because most people aren't like me They don't say well, where's my next sister going to be Most people just say hey nix is home. It's where I'm going to be forever So it doesn't matter if I only know this way one way of doing things so It's and I I don't disagree with that perspective at all like You that I think that's a natural thing that's going to happen with nix because it is a completely different way of approaching everything and if you do it long enough It's going to be really hard to going back to Not having simple config files that set up your system for you Manage your entire like, you know user like like I have a file that make that make sure xdg The xdg user durrs and everything is all set up and created Like that's just inside of a config file So I don't ever have to run that command or remember that that's something I need to do It just is done for me and I could easily see myself in two years Like if I'm still using nix on a daily driver on most of my machines Installing something else like, you know arch and then being like, oh, yeah, that's right. I have to go and do that Like hell, I easily know how to install xdg user durrs and run the command If I haven't done it in two years. I might have to go and google it And I mean that's just a small example of like what exactly what could happen so I I definitely agree with that perspective and My thing though is I don't think it's really a problem. I I think it definitely is annoying If you if you do want to change down the line and you've gotten really ingrained in xos, I could definitely see it being annoying I don't find it to be a problem mainly because if you're going if you're going to look for configs inside of someone who's using nix os Most people that I found that are using nix os Most of their programs are configured In the their regular config files that are just sourced by home manager and put where they need to be on the system Every rebuild so those config files for that program like I have sway and see neo fetch like you know Hyperland all of those config files are in regular config files that you would have in any other system. It's just It's not put in a dot config folder Like because I don't have to like I I have a config folder with those things in there Like my hyperland folder is instead of being called hyper is hyperland And then home manager takes that entire hyperland config hyperland folder and puts it in dot config hypr And puts it on the home system so Like for me if you're not using nix os a lot of the times you can still go and look at someone's configuration for their system and get You know their rice of sway and see your you know like whatever you're looking for on their system If it's not the entire thing So to me that's not that big of a problem However, I do totally understand if you just want to replicate someone's entire system, but you don't want to do it with nix os It's it's really really horrible to go through nix os Flake and try to figure out what's going on if you have no interest in nix you have no interest in nix os Like you just don't care you want to see what they're using because With nix os you're using the nix programming language to essentially build and configure your system That can really be a pain So I get that I like I I do But also that's kind of the whole point of nix in the first place if you do want to just replicate someone's system That that's literally what nix os is built for so you probably Should be interested in nix or at the very least Try to use nix os build that person's configuration and then go through Using that config and see what's going on That I don't know that's my personal opinion on it. So what you're saying is that in order for me to steal some of the Rices off from unix porn. I'm gonna have to Install nix os on my machine in order to do that No, no, no, I mean like my thing is if you want to replicate their entire system like everything That's probably going to be the best way of going about it like Definitely, but also if you just want if you just want someone's like, you know I'm trying to think like waybar configuration Normally that's going to be put inside of regular old config files. They haven't been put into nix Programming language and then are interpreted into those config files or whatever on the system. Normally, that's how it's done I picked a horrible example there because I'm using waybar and I've put it in my home manager So, yeah, okay. So for those of us, I mean, I've been using nix for a while, but I haven't really delved deep into flakes um Buddy would you please explain to us what flakes are? He'll be here eventually so I'm gonna ask him what what if he can explain what flakes are to the to the rest of us Once he gets back from letting buddy out the out the door All right, so tyler I was gonna ask you Oh, sorry. Sorry. That's fine Explain to us in simple New user terms what a flake actually is Okay A flake is a very easy one Because I'm trying to like I I could easily in seconds have the flake page. I open it read the actual definition of it So if anyone wants to learn the technical definition and how a flake is Like written comprised and all that stuff NixOS has a page on it. It explains it pretty well But the general idea of a flake is it is a system of controlling where your system pulls stuff from and also Allows you to have multiple configurations for a system in one place that you can choose With a with a flag every time you rebuild your system So regularly on nixOS you would run the nixOS rebuild switch command And that's going to rebuild your system from the slash slash atc slash nixOS folder that comes with your nixOS install With flakes you can enable flakes rebuild your system and then you can Get anybody's flake out there or build your own And when you run that that rebuild command again, you add dash dash flake Give it the flake directory And then you can also specify if you have multiple different nixOS configurations inside of your flake like Like I do you can do hashtag laptop hashtag workstation to build out different configurations that you want And you can and it can all be comprised inside of one git repo Flakes also has another feature and this can mess some people up. So I should go ahead and say this flakes is actually meant to be For you to be using it inside of a git repo so you can easily pull it down on other systems and your flake will not be able to use files And reference files that are outside of the git working tree So if you if you add like a config file Let's say your vmrc and you haven't git committed that vmrc when you try to rebuild It will actually fail and tell you like it can't find that file or whatever It's because it's outside of your git working tree So that's kind of a feature to help you from adding files and then rebuilding your system everything working good and then forgetting To push your git files and someone else pulling it down or you pulling it down on a different machine later and it's being broken so But at the end of the day all a flake is is it has a description inside of it and that is completely useless You can it's essentially just where you name like like for mine. It's just any os Then you have your inputs and that that tells the flake. Where is it getting the nix packages from you can also do like hyperland So like I I pull hyperland straight from source You you just define where the inputs for the system are coming in at and then you have the other section that contains Excuse me of your inputs and then your outputs and that's for your actual configuration So I want to run my workstation configuration a laptop configuration eventually I'm going to have my file server configuration all that kind of stuff So essentially a flake It manages all that stuff and then also every time you like another feature of is it it builds a lock file So it locks where you're pulling your packages from everything like set in stone so there's no chance of Potential breakages later on at least it should lower the chances of any breakages later on when rebuilding the system So that's kind of the idea of flakes raise your hand in the chat if you're more confused now than you were before he's No, I understand I understand the gist of it I think that when it comes to that kind of stuff is that nix has The ability to bamboozle me more And this has been my experience throughout the entire four months of using it it has the It has more of a possibility of confusing me on how it does things than any other tool on linux that I've ever used And well not only because it just does things differently But because it has these actually like it has home manager and while you have to learn how to use home manager has flakes nice You know, I haven't used flakes because they still I've had a hard time getting my head around what they actually are And I need and it's another reason why I can't do the long-term review until I can actually you know Learn what those things are and there's all these things and they're each individual pieces and they all go together and You look I just look at them as a whole and like this is not meant for Me mr. Dumbass I don't I don't get it You you you bring up a good point and that's that's why I didn't really like I made a video talking using flakes at all and Part of that reason was you already have like like let's talk about it But you like puzzle pieces You've already got nix os is like core the configuration nix hardware configuration nix to worry So like you've already got to figure out how nix os manages your system and then On top of that i'm also already have added on another pit puzzle piece of home manager Which slots right into configuration and then builds out and manages my home directory in a lot of ways for me And so most most people assume you have to use home manager You don't have to use home manager at all you could completely leave it by the wayside. Don't need it I I like it and it's got a lot of features, but that's beyond the So i'm already using that then I add in flakes on top of that's a whole and then Also, there's the whole added problem of nix os is really just You can think about it this way. It's like building out your system as if you were Building out like, you know a rust project whatever you're You're essentially doing the same thing, but with a nix programming language And then the binary that you're trying to build being your actual Linux system your bootable Linux system So essentially like you're you also have to deal with the fact that you're using a programming to build your system and Most people don't care like there's a lot of people out there that have tried nix os that don't care about program so You've got a programming mentality with like with extra utilities added on the system The layer of complexity that I have going on now with my system is In my opinion, it's too high For most people like and that's not me saying most people are dumb I'm just saying most people probably don't want the complexity of a configuration that I have Most people probably I would assume so that's my assumption So I I I definitely see the argument for Lakes because it's it's an added layer complexity same thing with home manager and you don't have to The problem is there's a lot of cool things you can do with both of those that people probably would be interested in with But it's hard to dive in from scratch like if you're new to nix os and you just pull down my configuration The amount of things that you might have to learn and work through is Annoying I could definitely be honest about saying that So I mean would you agree? Yeah, nix os is annoying, but their users are more annoying So I I'm gonna get a lot of shit in this video because or in this podcast because I've called everyone dumb I don't like I just assume that you're moron and then like oh you just said that did he like yeah Yeah, I did just say that. I know no get me wrong. I am also one of those people. I'm a dumbass. So I I fit right in with everybody But I've also made a lot of fun of nix os users over the course of the last few months because I think because it does things so there's this thing in the linux community. We've talked about this before Where if your distro is hard to install or does things slightly differently that could be construed to make it seem like it's That a better way of doing things You're automatically if you're a user of that Almost contractually obligated to tell other people that you did it So if you install gentu You're gonna tell people that you installed gentu You're just gonna I mean there's no one who has ever installed gentu hasn't told someone that hey, I installed gentu last night You know they they did that it's almost guaranteed Arch linux used to be exactly the same way when arch was hard to install I use arch by the way. That's the reason why that exists The probably I mean linux from scratch is so rare for people to actually install It's not really a meme because very few people actually do it But if it were more, you know popular more people would say that right so nix os has So many things that it does differently And when people learn how to do those things like you just sat there for five minutes explaining what flakes were if you went through the process of learning what a flake was and you're using flakes And you've discovered how to use home manager and using home manager and you're doing all this stuff with nix and it just seems so cool You gotta tell everybody about it and So Over the course of the last year and the where the weirdest thing has happened because nix os is not a new thing It's been around for 10 15 years been wrong for a long time But over the course of the last year it has become the hot shit And it's it's weird because none of this stuff is new It's been around for a long time. It's weird that all of a sudden now It's become the big thing and I would like I mean, I can understand the psychology behind wanting to tell people when you've done something cool I literally spent five minutes at the beginning of this podcast talking about how I patched DWM for 10 hours straight trying to do that. That's how much of a nerd. I am so I understand you guys You're my people. Okay. This is my tribe. I understand it But I would like to understand is why now like I don't I don't get why At this like is there some marketing guy at the company who's behind nix os who has decided All of a sudden that now is the time for nix os to shine like Did you guys know this that bacon didn't used to be a big thing? like Yes, bacon has always been a thing but There was a period of the last probably five or seven years or so where bacon has become huge Like they made bacon ice cream and bacon popcorn and literally put bacon on everything Right and bacon and toothpaste, right? So that's a marketing thing, right? So i'm wondering if there's like a nix os marketer dude Who's who's cotton out there and said hey, you should use nix os because it's cool or something I think that is a good point. Why not? I've been wondering that because the weirdest thing was I can't remember when I did it But when I first checked out nix os I installed it. I got like, you know, I got all the programs I needed installed I mean, I had a working system and I think I can't remember if I did videos on it at all or just talked about it But from what I can remember the first time I checked out nix os Now in mind you this is still when I was like putting out my dot files for everyone else to use and everything The first time I checked it out. I was like, it's got a lot of features and a lot of stuff and it works fine But most of the features it has just aren't for me Like I don't I don't think I'll really take advantage of most of the features I'm not really interested in them like nix shells nix environments. I still haven't used them To this to this day have no reason to dive into a nix envi For nix shell I have no idea and those are big features of nix But the first time I tried it out I did the same thing i'm doing now not checking out some major features that nix os has And this time i'm loving it and really enjoying diving into all the different aspects of it And the first time I just wasn't interested I I don't know why all of a sudden I am and and I gotta be honest Now that i've been into nix and have talked with a lot of people A lot of the other people have You know over the past year or so have been Have become nix os users and really love it I don't know what it is, but it seems like Very recently people have started adopting nix and it is booming it And to your point of but maybe there's a marketing dude who's like at the forefront of this Or but working behind the scenes What's changed about nix os market at the website? I think looks the exact same as last time Nothing's changed. What's happening? Everybody's interested I May have something to do with nix os versus arch like everybody's like tired of Doing new things and arch well See the thing is here Arch became too easy There's an arch install script now all you had to do is you can install arch in in 10 seconds It doesn't take any effort anymore. Therefore you can't brag about it And you know, it's no longer impressive when someone says I use arch. Well, who cares? But if you say I use nix, oh You use something special to you, you know The same thing still happens with gentu if you if you're a gentu user you get looked at a little bit differently Because you put up a lot of shit from gentu, you know, you you you have talent that's regular mere mortals don't have Moss in the chat said something about developers started using nix And that's the reason why and that is a good explanation that more and more developers have come around to using nix because of the Development tools that nix offers the virtual environments and and and shells and stuff like that and because of that more People tend to follow the lead of some developers that they like So if you're a fan of martin wimpress or whatever, you know, he now works for nix os And you're gonna follow him around because that's a lot of people do You know and it's been the same with a lot of you know other developers who have started using nix os And they take their communities kind of with them like it happens to me too. I'm not a developer I started using open suza All of a sudden like a third of my discord server now uses open suza, you know all also sticker Can't help it it's in the contract I do think I do think you have a very good point I I would like to say though that For for those people who are calling nix os the new arch I I Don't completely disagree with that sentiment However, I do want to say a big difference between nix os and the Community that you find with arch is I have The only people that I have seen use the term rtfm When in a conversation about nix is in relation To nix and arch Okay The I'm sorry to cut you off there, but the reason exactly what you're gonna say the reason why they can't point to the Documentation and say go read the documentation because the documentation is shit. Okay. Yes arch wikis awesome I think that's probably why sorry nix might be better for like look if you're somebody who As much as we might not like this mentality It would be intellectually dishonest to say that this mentality doesn't exist There are people out there that do want to just use something because they know it's difficult And it most people won't go and do it and they can brag about it I will say the advantage that nix os has of arch is those people can't Nearly be as much of an arsehole or a problem because Well, you can't just tell someone to go and read the nix os documentation and it's not because the documentation is Completely crap most things are actually documented, but it is organized in the most horrific way you could possibly imagine There are things that should be on one page because it's about a flake But isn't there because it's it's used as an example in some other way. It's ridiculous, so it You can you can go and find documentation for a lot of things if not everything on nix The problem is it's everyone Everyone inside that all right look every single person i've talked to inside the nix os community has agreed That it is cruel and unusual punishment to just send someone hunting for the info they need Inside of the documentation or on the web, so When it comes to nix os no matter what the thing that I have Experienced myself especially over this past past month has been people being Overwhelmingly positive and willing to help me address issues In pretty much anything that I found I mean I literally had someone do that yesterday or the day before like walk through how I could fix something and Like I was being an idiot about it for a long time So they bared with me Through a lot of crap that was probably hard to watch for somebody who knows what they were doing And was never once rude or you know like anything was overwhelming positive throughout the entire thing so That's an advantage That's that's a good point that I say nix os users are annoying, but it's not because they're like terrible people like or push Most of them aren't even pushy about I mean the guys in my nix in my discord server are pushy But that's just because I troll them so often that they're kind of getting their payback I can understand it If I I have to take it if I have to give it so I I'm fully understanding that but the vast majority of nix os users Yes, they'll tell you that they use nix and they tell we'll tell you how awesome it is But they're also you're right. They're much more helpful It releases seams then the arched guys or even the open suzer guys select the open suzer forums are full of mean bastards like No, some of that is because they're german no offense to germans, but you guys can be kind of well, it's not even mean It's just blunt. They're very blunt about their things, right? Right. Yeah, it's just the nature of their culture. It's just the way they are And if if you're a soft american you can go there and ask a question and they're going to answer it very bluntly And it's gonna come across as them being an asshole Arch guys are just assholes. They don't have the excuse of being german I think too what helps nix os is too because like with arch when someone tells you You know, it's not for you or you know, you can't use it. It's typically from a You know, it's a skill issue like it's it's that kind of comment and I hate that with nix os Like when people tell you it's probably not for you or something They're not coming from that perspective They mean if you're not interested in programming it literally uses a programming language for its configuration Probably not for you It does a lot of things that if you don't care about reproducing your system everywhere or sharing your figs with people Probably doesn't matter at all. Like I mean if you're not a developer It's like there's a lot of features there that you know have a lot of work behind them That you're probably never going to use like they Like I think when nix os users tell you it's probably not for you. They're being honest Like it's not like a you know, you don't have the skills to do this or you probably couldn't learn You know, you're not reading the documentation. It's not coming from any negative standpoint If they're just being like realistic and honest with you like it you probably won't You won't take advantage of a lot of the features and it it has a steep learning curve that you probably have no interest in So, you know and and also like my thing too is like I love nix os. I'm really really liking it But at the end of the day, it's not the best the linux distro out there. I don't To me, I don't even know which one I would call the best but There are so many choices out there that if you're not looking for a learning curve All this stuff you got plenty of other really good options that probably won't take up as much as your time configuring, you know that that first week of using nix os is definitely an uphill battle for Some portion of it's it's gotta that first week. It's gotta have some uphill battles Because it's just so different from everything else you've used Find yourself a buddy that uses nix os. That's the best thing that you can do And see here's it. Here's the difference between nix os and gentu whereas on On gentu, there's 12 different ways of doing things So if you're poor mat trying to do a live stream of installing gentu And you have six people in the chat trying to tell you how to install things you end up with a non bootable system and nix Yeah, there's a couple different ways of doing things But they're mostly compatible with each other and you're not going You know and most people do things in the same way, right? It's it's a documented It's a way of doing things that me if it is not well documented and if you can find yourself a buddy who does use nix or Even better just hop in matz discord hop in tyler's discord There's literally a swarm of nix os users there that you just mentioned nix os and they're like, hey, did you say nix os? I'm here. How you doing? How you doing friend? And I mean to be honest if you're interested in nix My discord is probably the place that you need to draw like I will definitely say this much. We may not have nix os like core developers or like You know the most knowledgeable nix os people around but the one thing I will say is every person I know that's using nix os on my discord server It's more than willing to sit down with you when they're free and help you like Find out what the problem is a dress issue like I will say my discord is extremely helpful for Figuring out any issue you might run into on nix os so Might be worthwhile of joy and if you're if you're looking for nix link is in the chat by the way for tyler's discord. All right Yes, I'm actually doing you know the hosting duties. I can be a host every once in a while. It's all right. It's good Anyway, so we talked about nix We're not gonna talk about nix again for a little while although I'm sure tyler will have things to talk about at the beginning of every show because he's now a nix os fanboy Just like i'm an open suzer fanboy open suzer by the way is better than nix os. I'll fight you if you It's definitely a better distro distro. Hey, you want to that's the folder and the the user folder or where they are supposed to be Anyways, let's go ahead move on to the nuggies of the week and I still hate the name I still Hate the name But anyways the nuggies week the week are things that we found interesting that we thought we would share They can be apps tips tricks any of those things although we usually always pick apps But eventually somebody will do a trick or a tip and it'll be awesome But until that time we have some apps for you today tyler your nuggies of the week I think I have talked about these before. I'm not positive But grim and slurp if you're using a whaling whaling a whaling compositor like hyperland Anything else that you probably want to take screenshots and you don't already have a tool Set up for doing it If you go into my hyperland keybidings, I have mod. I believe it's mod s takes a screenshot and Yeah, it is mod s that runs grim and slurp They're kind of together you kind of use them together to select an area of the screen and then save that as a screenshot You can do a whole bunch of different nice stuff with with these tools together, but They're very small packages and they make taking screenshots extraordinarily simple So I like using them. There's a whole bunch of other really good options out there. So Obviously there's plenty of options for taking a screenshot on But I I do really like this method. Yeah, I want to talk about it for a minute. That's how I do things and it's Nice. Cool. Also horrible names, but I do not disagree with it Someone had a dirty mind when they talked about those but uh, or let's assume that others did I guess But anyways My nuggy of the week is something called box buddy now. So you have dirty minds to get your mind out of the gutter Box buddy is a distra box gooey front end So if you are as big on distra box as I am and you should be because distra box is freaking awesome But you don't like managing your distra boxes in the command line Box buddy is the tool that you want to look at So I'm not going to talk too much about it because I do have a video Already recorded that will go up sometime this week and you can you can check that out On the channel, but basically just briefly what it does is it allows you to create distra boxes It allows you to delete distra boxes. It allows you to update distra boxes And it allows you to View any applications that you've installed on the distra box and export them to your host system So you can launch them from your your application menu all without touching the terminal Kind of it does open the terminal, but you kind of just see it you don't have to interact with it So It's really nice if you want to have some gooey front end for distra box It doesn't do everything you're still going to have to do some things from the command line But if you want to manage your distra box and one of my favorite features about it Is that one of the biggest problems with distra box that a hat the distra box has Is that their documentation has a list of images that you can install via distra box But that list is never ever updated like seriously I don't even think that devian 12 is on there yet. Maybe they've updated in the last few weeks But it wasn't the last time I looked and they just don't update that list very often With box, but he has a drop down of all the images that you can install From vault multiple sources and all you got to do is just select it and it will install it It's really cool. It means you don't have to go hunting for the image It's just you know open a box buddy name the the distra box And select the image that you want and the source that you want it from and Install it. That's all you do. It's really cool. So if you're into distra box highly recommend a box buddy It's available via flat pack. So really cool. Anyway, so that is it for the linux cast If you want to get in contact with us, you can do so in any number ways The best way to do so is head on over to the website Which is the linux cast org there you'll find previous episodes When matt decides to eventually update that thing, which I still have not done So I've been too busy patching dwm and switching on window managers. How I don't have time to update a website. What are you talking about? Anyways, you can also head on over there and see previous blog posts Which there are more recent blog posts over there than there are episodes. I will get that updated. I promise But anyways, you can find tyler who does a youtube channel That he remembers the password for and actually has been posting videos nix os videos But still videos. He's at youtube.com slash zanio g You can obviously subscribe to the linux cast on youtube at youtube.com slash the linux cast You can support me on patreon patreon.com slash linux cast tyler Is also on patreon that link will be on the contact page on the website I don't know what his url is. I should probably memorize that but I don't have it memorized You can find all of our contact information including links to our discord servers To matrix if if I think my matrix is is at least linked on there. I doubt your matrix is your matrix Matrix even still exists. I hope not I have not touched that thing in forever. I haven't either to be honest with you I I think when I switched from flat packs to snaps, I didn't even transfer cine over. So There's a thing. Anyways, you can find all that stuff at the links cast.org slash contact All of our stuff for you know, mastodon and stuff like that is there as well You can head on over there and check out all of our contact information Also, if you want to find some awesome merch, you can head on over to my store Which is the it which is available at shop that links cast.org There you'll find t-shirts and hats and hoodies and all sorts of stuff including the Awesome t-shirt that you can't really see on tyler right now because he's so dark But he has a linux cast t-shirt actually on It's the nuggies t-shirt that is available on my shop as well shop that linux cast.org Get those good shirt get those while you can Because those are limited time only eventually they'll go away So that's it for this episode of the links cast record this live every saturday at three o'clock p.m Eastern time or they're about today. We start a little bit later than normal But that's okay So you can head on over to the links cast youtube channel and you can watch us live if you want to The live stream does go unlisted directly after the show If you want if you missed the live stream, you can always catch the edited version Which will be posted monday evenings on the youtube channel and on every podcast or you you can imagine So if you want to get an apple podcast or whatever if you do listen to the audio version on Application that allows you to leave reviews. Please leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you on On especially apple podcasts. They love reviews And if you can leave us one that'd be freaking awesome And if you don't listen to the apple podcast, but you have an apple podcast like account Go leave us a review. Anyways, even if you don't You know listen to us there. It could really help us. So anyways now that i'm done begging for your help That's it for us this this episode. Thanks to everybody who does support me on patreon and youtube you guys are all Absolutely amazing without you the channel just would not be anywhere near where it is right now So thank you so very very much for your support. I truly do appreciate you guys are awesome And amazing people and seriously just awesome Did I use the word awesome more in that sentence don't think I could yes Probably probably should but don't think I could anyways. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next week