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#nixos #linux #linuxdistro
00:00 Introduction
00:36 Sponsor: Kasm, the best remote desktop tool
01:22 What is NixOS?
04:20 Using the configuration file
08:58 Nix Package Manager
11:03 Update and unstable channel
12:48 Nix is much more than that
2:53 p.m. Sponsor: Get a PC designed to run Linux
3:58 p.m. Support the channel
NixOS is a completely and completely reproducible Linux distribution. Everything you use is defined in a configuration file used to build your system. All services, packages, options, partition layout, hardware, everything is in this configuration file.
If you're a developer, your eyes might glaze over right now: That's right, a single configuration file to exactly replicate your entire development environment.
You can also never enter the hell of addiction. The packages all declare exactly which versions of each library they need, and those versions are all installed side by side and retained, not erased by newer versions.
To create your configuration, there is a main configuration file in /etc/nixos called configuration.nix.
This file uses its own specific, fully functional syntax: it describes everything the system uses and with what options, from hardware, bootloader, services, packages, applications, users, everything.
This file is then used to build your operating system. Nix will read everything in it and install, configure, and enable or disable everything, depending on what's in the file. So if you create a nixOS system with the same config file as someone else, you will end up with the exact same system.
Once you have rebuilt your system, there are now several entries in the bootloader: one for the new version and one for the old one: you can always revert to the previous configuration.
Of course, all of this requires root access to modify the main system configuration. But if you don't have root access, or don't want to add programs to your main reproducible setup, but just test them for now, you can also install packages as a regular user, at nix package manager help. Or you can add flatpak to your config file or run appimages. But the installation of programs will mainly be done using the Nix package manager.
The Nix package manager works on any Linux distribution, but also on macOS, WSL, etc. It's very easy to use. If I want to install, for example, OBS, I simply type
nix-env -iA nixos.obs-studio
The -i is the argument to install, and the capital A is used to tell the package manager to install using the specific name of the package, instead of scanning the entire repository, which is much slower.
If I want to remove the package, I can use nix-env -e obs-studio, and it will be removed. Note that installing packages with nix-env does not add them to the configuration file.
NixOS works with channels. By default, you will use the Stable channel, with tested packages that only receive security updates and major feature updates when a new version of NixOS is released, every 6 months.
To update you can simply run the command
sudo nix-channel –update
This will pull all the latest versions of the channel package used by your system.
Then you run the command /"nix-rebuild switch –upgrade/", and your system will grab each new version of each package and rebuild the system based on your configuration file.
It is important to note that the new version of a package is installed alongside the old one. New versions are the ones that will be used, thanks to a simple symbolic link system that always points to the most recent version of a package, but you can revert to an older one.
To obtain more recent packages, at the risk of having a less stable system, you can switch to the unstable channel.
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