I hopped from arch (2010-2019) to Nixos (2019-2023). I had my issues with it but being a functional programmer, I really liked the declarative style of configuring your OS. That was until last week. I decided to try out void Linux (musl). I’m happy with it so far.

Why did I switch?

  1. Nix is extremely slow and data intensive (compared to xbps). I mean sometimes 100-1000x or more. I know it is not a fair comparison because nix is doing much more. Even for small tweaks or dependency / toolchain update it’ll download/rebuild all packages. This would mean 3-10GB (or more) download on Nixos for something that is a few KB or MB on xbps.

  2. Everything is noticeably slower. My system used way more CPU and Ram even during idle. CPU was at 1-3% during idle and my battery life was 2 to 3.5h. Xfce idle ram usage was 1.5 GB on Nixos. On Void it’s around 0.5GB. I easily get 5-7h of battery life for my normal usage. It is 10h-12h if I am reading an ebook.

Nix disables a lot of compiler optimisations apparently for reproducibility. Maybe this is the reason?

  1. Just a lot of random bugs. Firefox would sometimes leak memory and hang. I have only 8 GB of ram. WiFi reconnecting all the time randomly. No such issues so far with void.

  2. Of course the abstractions and the language have a learning curve. It’s harder for a beginner to package or do something which is not already exposed as an option. (This wasn’t a big issue for me most of the time.)

For now, I’ll enjoy the speed and simplicity of void. It has less packages compared to nix but I have flatpak if needed. So far, I had to install only Android studio with it.

My verdict is to use Nixos for servers and shared dev environments. For desktop it’s probably not suitable for most.

    • 7ai@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      11 months ago

      I was using flakes. I gave the reason why it’s data intensive. If a core dependency like glibc is updated, it’s hash will change and all packages that depend on it need to be rebuilt and rehashed. It’ll download all packages again even though there’s minimal change.

  • Nora@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    11 months ago

    That is so the opposite experience for me. Every other distro for me just ends up weird after using it too long and I get the symptoms you mentioned. Nixos always stays perfectly clean for me like I never touched it. My hardware (long story) does change my experience a little though.

    • 7ai@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      11 months ago

      Yeah there’s a lot of state accumulation especially in home folder which I clear manually from time to time.

      In Nixos you can configure the impermanence module to clear unwanted state on your system and make it a “fresh install” on every reboot.

  • mrh@mander.xyzEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    edit: I do feel norawibb’s point, the slippery mutability of Void is something I am a lot less comfortable with than I used to be. Apparently Guix has spoiled me.

  • iopq@lemmy.ml
    0·
    11 months ago

    I think the verdict is NixOS is perfect for desktops, since you probably don’t care about data or compiling everything or slight inefficiencies

      • blackstrat@lemmy.fwgx.ukEnglish
        0·
        11 months ago

        It has to be! No one can hate themselves so much they deliberately go out of their way to use something needlessly slow

        • iopq@lemmy.ml
          1·
          11 months ago

          I dispute the needlessly part. NixOS unstable has very new packages, do you’re getting some fresh updates before some other packaging systems.

          Is it less “efficient” than waiting for major versions? Of course. But I’m willing to run an update in the background on my desktop to get that new software.

    • monotrox@discuss.tchncs.de
      0·
      11 months ago

      That really depends on what kind of computer you are using and how fast your internet connection is. Also a desktop computer should be (for most people) as little maintanance work as possible and having long update/install times really stands in the way of that.

      • iopq@lemmy.ml
        1·
        11 months ago

        Why? If it’s installing singing in the background it’s not stopping me from doing my work

  • Euphoma@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    In my experience, doing small changes to your nix config when using nix flakes seems to be faster. For me it only rebuilds everything when I run nix flake update before running sudo nixos-rebuild switch so it seems faster because it only does the thing that I changed instead of updating everything.

    • 7ai@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      Yeah. Most small changes will not rebuild everything. It’s just the core dependency updates that are most expensive. Like say openssl got a minor update. Now every package that depends on it needs to be rebuilt and rehashed because of the way nix store works.

    • lloram239@feddit.de
      0·
      11 months ago

      Also this in your configure.nix:

        nix.registry = {
    nixpkgs = {
      from = {
        type = "indirect";
        id = "nixpkgs";
      };
      to = {
        type = "path";
        path = inputs.nixpkgs.outPath;
      };
    };
  };

      This will create an entry in the nix registry pointing to your currently installed version and stop nix search from constantly updating the package list.

        • lloram239@feddit.de
          0·
          11 months ago

          No, it just makes the nix command use the same nixpkgs repository your system is already using. Without it nix will constantly redownload the latest nixpkgs-unstable which is very slow. You will get slightly older software when you do something like nix run nixpkgs#blender (“old” here meaning the same version as if you had it installed on your current system), but if you just want to try something out, you probably care more about it being fast than the latest version.

          And if you care about lastest stuff you’ll can just make yourself a nixpkgs-unstable registry entry with:

          nix registry add flake:unstable github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable

          and than do:

          nix run nixpkgs-unstable#blender

          Updating your OS isn’t impacted by any of this at all, as that happens via the /etc/nixos/flake.lock file as before.

          PS: This assumes you are using flakes and the new nix command, both of which are still marked as experiment and not enabled the default.

          • Lalelul@feddit.de
            1·
            11 months ago

            Thanks a lot. I will give it a try. By the way, are you also using the NUR? Do you maybe know if I can configure the nix.registry to allow using NUR packages using nix shell as well?

            • lloram239@feddit.de
              1·
              11 months ago

              Good question. NUR doesn’t seem to output the packages directly, but requires that you supply your pkgs manually. You can use nix shell with NUR, but it gets rather ugly:

              nix shell --impure --expr '(import (builtins.getFlake github:nix-community/NUR) { pkgs = (import  {}).pkgs; }).repos.mic92.hello-nur'

              nix registry doesn’t help here, as it’s just for managing aliases that allow you to type “nixpkgs” instead of “github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-23.05” in some places.

              It might be possible to write a flake that outputs NUR packages for direct use, e.g. something like:

              {
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-23.05";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
    nur_src.url = "github:nix-community/NUR";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, flake-utils, nur_src }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem (system:
      let
        pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.${system};
        nurpkgs = import "${nur_src}/default.nix" { pkgs = pkgs; nurpkgs = pkgs; };
      in {
        packages = nurpkgs.repos.mic92; // FIXME: this needs more work and filtering
      }
    );
}

              Which gives:

              $ nix --allow-import-from-derivation flake show .
git+file:///
└───packages
    ├───aarch64-darwin
    │   ├───bing-image-creator: package 'python3.10-bing-image-creator-0.4.4'
    │   ├───clearsans: package 'clearsans-1.00'
    │   ├───cntr: package 'cntr-1.5.1'
    │   ├───conky-symbols: package 'ConkySymbols'
    │   ├───eapol_test: package 'eapol_test-2.10'
    │   ├───edge-gpt: package 'python3.10-edge-gpt-0.13.1'
    │   ├───fira-code-pro-nerdfonts: package 'nerdfonts-3.0.1'
    │   ├───gatttool: package 'bluez-5.66'
    │   ├───gdb-dashboard: package 'gdb-dashboard-0.11.4'

              But needs some more work and might be reinventing the wheel. Haven’t used NUR myself and no idea what the state of flakes in NUR is.

    • Danileonis @lemmy.ml
      1·
      11 months ago

      Void feel faster on old hardware due to systemd missing, the real problem is no-AUR imo.

        • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
          0·
          11 months ago

          I don’t need a lot from the AUR, but a few packages I can’t dl without. Tbf those would be in the official repos in other distros like fedora. I’ve got some weird bugs with fedora though. I just use endeavourOS cause it’s so hassle free. One of the best distros period.

  • Xylight (Photon dev)@lemmy.xylight.devEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    Really? In my experience NixOS is faster than Arch.

    edit: this isn’t arguing against him, i’ve heard lots of cases where Arch is indeed faster. For me though, I feel like nixos is faster for my use cases.

    • 7ai@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      11 months ago

      You mean in terms of how fast it feels? I have never heard anyone saying this before. Can you share some details and perhaps some tips to improve performance on Nixos?

      What hardware do you run Nixos on and do you modify and rebuild a lot of packages on nixpkgs?

          • LeFantome@programming.dev
            1·
            11 months ago

            He is assuming that you are trying to win an argument and seeing your strategic approach to doing so. It is kind of implied that you want to win the argument without having to defend your position or even be right.

            I did not get that from your comment. It felt like you were more genuinely surprised to see others relating experiences you have not had. I have left very similar comments myself.

            It sucks that the Internet makes us instantly distrust each other.

  • Fubarberry@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    I know you haven’t used it for 4 years, but how would you compare arch to Nix and Void?

    I’m asking because I’m using an arch based distro, but I’ve been eyeing both nix and void and wondering if they’re worth trying.

    • 7ai@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Arch and void are very similar except void has a smaller community and much smaller set of packages to install. Arch also has better documentation.

      Void is considered more lightweight because it uses runit instead of systemd and a choice to use musl instead of glibc.

      I feel for most, arch is a better choice of the three.