Neo
Cyberpunk | Programmer | Ruby on Rails veteran | Nix user | Sysop | Mr. Fusion maintainer for the MiSTer project
I’m building a batteries included desktop OS based on NixOS. A bit like ZorinOS, ChromeOS or Mint but with NixOS as a base. It’s a bit ambitious and still in an early stage, but it’s been great fun for me using the Nix package manager as a solid tool to build stuff. Check it out at https://nixup.io/ or https://github.com/nixup-io/desk-os if you’re curious. Anyone with the nix package manager installed and flakes enabled can just execute nix run github:nixup-up/desk-os to spin up a VM with a demo.
Since I started using the Nix package manager and switched to NixOS, the notion of a “Linux distribution” faded into little more than “A bootloader + the Linux kernel + some userspace programs”.
I checked it, it’s true. Side note: it’s “the saté of AI.” FTFY. From what I’ve heard it’s even better than 🍿to sit back and watch this farce unfold.
If it’s running off an SD card then it’s very likely the SD card is broken. It’s better to run a pi off a USB SSD drive. Hope you have backups. Good luck either way.
Edit (more context):
https://hackaday.com/2019/04/08/give-your-raspberry-pi-sd-card-a-break-log-to-ram/
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/09/raspberry-pi-and-the-story-of-sd-card-corruption/
“It’s an older meme, Sir. But it checks out!”
I believe there is a much larger, silent majority of nix users, contributors and enthusiasts that are not affected by this drama. Here’s a post that resonates with me: https://nrd.sh/blog/nixos-policy-breakdown/
Over 20 years in this technology space, I’ve come to recognize software built on very solid foundational concepts. Nix is one of those. It’s not going anywhere and neither is NixOS. I encourage anyone interested in Nix to read Eelco Dolstra’s thesis: https://edolstra.github.io/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf