NixOS 16.03 Released

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NixOS 16.03 Released

NixOS 16.03 is codenamed "Emu" and it's out today as the latest stable release of this interesting Linux distribution...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NixOS-16.03-Released

[CrystalGamma]

As someone who has a soft side for NixOS (I am using it on one of my machines, and I really like how I can just roll back broken updates or configurations), I would certainly be interested in benchmarks, and I would generally love to see an article with your experiences and opinions after trying it.
Alas, I can't use it as a daily driver because of hardware issues … (while AMDGPU does run on Linux which is what's in this release, I definitely prefer using the latest versions)

[c117152]

My only contention with NixOS vs. GuixSD is that it challenge me to decide what I hate most, Guile, or Haskell. On the one end, all the parenthesis... On the other end, monads...
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Well, for now GuixSD is missing so many non-free packages that I default on NixOS. But I have to admit, I can work with guile despite the syntax. I'm not sure I could ever be really productive with haskell.

Just my two cents after trying each for a few weeks.

[vcunat]

My only contention with NixOS vs. GuixSD is that it challenge me to decide what I hate most, Guile, or Haskell. On the one end, all the parenthesis... On the other end, monads...

While the Nix language used in NixOS can resemble Haskell in some respects, they differ quite a lot. In Nix the typing is dynamic, there are no monads, no 2D syntax, etc.

[CrystalGamma]

While the Nix language used in NixOS can resemble Haskell in some respects, they differ quite a lot. In Nix the typing is dynamic, there are no monads, no 2D syntax, etc.

What resemblances do you mean? As you said, it's dynamically typed, so typeclasses and parametric polymorphy don't really work. The only thing they have in common are lazyness and currying.

Also, it's pretty trivial to just use a 1D syntax in Haskell if you prefer (using braces and semicolons), even though that's not particularly idiomatic.
The main reason why I personally am frustrated by Haskell every time I try it is Cabal and the library infrastructure and ecosystem in general. I had hoped that NixOS would at least alleviate the first issue, but even there it feels like a hack. Nix is pretty great though, so I keep using NixOS anyway.

[c117152]

While the Nix language used in NixOS can resemble Haskell in some respects, they differ quite a lot. In Nix the typing is dynamic, there are no monads, no 2D syntax, etc.

Sorry, that sentence was poorly constructed. When writing it, I assumed it would be clear I was lamenting the lack of monads seeing how nix doesn't have monads while guile has (guix monad-repl)... My bad.

Let me try again: Guile has a lot of freedom since it's a non-domain-specific language. Nix is a chopped down Haskell made specifically for packages. When I tried packaging some of my own stuff, I found it hard to express some conditional installation steps in nix (though I figured it out eventually) while in guile it was easy enough though I was left concerned about it being too powerful*. Eventually, I ended up with the impression that there might be a few things I wouldn't be able to do in nix when compared to guile.

But mind you, this is all coming from a guy who dislikes both guile and haskell for different reasons.

TL;DR: troff vs. tex all over again.

* I dread a day when packages scripts draw gui elements for the user to press next and read EULAs with. Try out guile programming in general and then look up package syntax and you'll see it for yourself.

[vcunat]

What resemblances do you mean? As you said, it's dynamically typed, so typeclasses and parametric polymorphy don't really work. The only thing they have in common are lazyness and currying.

I meant mainly that syntax style is similar, it being relatively sugary, so it can appear similar to Haskell. That is in stark contrast to the lisp-style camp of functional languages (e.g. guix/guile).

Missing the typing, for example, has little impact on appearance or writing; it's mainly that compiler/interpreter catches much less errors. (Don't get me wrong, I very much like what Haskell-style typing provides.)

[davidak]

I'm using NixOS on my private servers at home for some months now.
Here are my configurations: https://github.com/davidak/nixos-config
Benchmarks in comparison to other distros like debian would be interesting!