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Comment by alufers | Hacker News Reader

The knowledge is one thing, because you can always learn how to do things the "Nix way" (either by reading the incomplete documentation or tinkering for hours until the thing works).

But the real problem is that software does not understand nix either.

For example loads of scripts expect /bin/bash to exist, but on NixOS it is missing. Want to run a random python script from github? Well that's a bummer, because there is no nix version of a random library this script uses. Also no-machine server and Chrome Remote Desktop don't work, and these are the two remote desktop solutions which work on spotty 4G.

And I had to ditch NixOS, because my employer forced me to use a proprietary VPN, and I there is no way it would run on NixOS.

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Just to say, there are always ways to deal with what you describe. For /bin/bash, create a symlink from /bin/bash to bash:

  system.activationScripts.binbash = ''
    mkdir -m 0755 -p /bin
    ln -sfn ${pkgs.bash}/bin/bash /bin/.bash.tmp
    mv /bin/.bash.tmp /bin/bash # atomically replace /bin/bash
  '';

For python, you're best off using a virtualenv anyways. For proprietary binaries, you can almost always get them to run using steam-run. But the nicer way is a wrapper script to set up LD_LIBRARY_PATH, or custom derivation to patch their ld lib paths.

Yeah it requires some elbow grease sometimes, but what distribution doesn't? Maybe Fedora/Ubuntu? I think the pain really is all that prior Linux knowledge is non-transferable and you have to learn how to fix things in the Nix way.

> wrapper script to set up LD_LIBRARY_PATH, or custom derivation to patch their ld lib paths.

There is your problem, I don't want to spend time writing wrapper scripts, or researching how to craft my buildFHS for every little piece of software I will run once for an oddly specific purpose.

Running the proprietary VPN on Arch Linux was as simple as running debtap, and then installing the package via pacman, even though the package shipped by the vendor was made for Ubuntu. It even figured out the dependencies automatically.

I know I could do the same thing on NixOS, but it would be way more clunky and time consuming. For example: this is how a package is installed from a .deb using nix: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-19.09/pkgs/tools...

If Arch can do it in two commands, so should NixOS, just with two lines of nix :)

It could probably be automated more. It's just that most NixOS users have low interest in automation .deb -> Nix conversion since it's not something you actually run into often as a NixOS user.

Check out envfs, which automagically puts symlinks like that in place for you in a systematic way!

https://github.com/Mic92/envfs

you should not create such an imperative simlink almost anything can be packages with nix in a minute or two, so any code you found out the internet would be easy to run and it will take not much more time than to simply check it's build config for malicious code, which you should do anyway

Maybe if you use buildUserFHS and --impure a lot. But NodeJS applications that try to download binaries at install time or python packages with conflicting package versions definitely take more than a minute or two. Just look at the history of Anki in Nixpkgs, or the derivations for JetBrains products or Cypress or any of the other packages that took consistent effort by multiple contributors to even get them working in the first place.

I think it's important to manage expectations about Nix and that includes being realistic about what's easy and simple what isn't.

Yeah, I am aware what I did above would make a lot of nixos purists shudder. But from a pragmatic pov it saves me a lot of time. It's mostly to deal with repos at clients that are filled with scripts hardcoded to /bin/bash.

If your software can run on linux it's extremely unlikely to not work on NixOS.

In fact proprietary binaries will be much easier to run since you don't have to do with non-reproducible builds in some source repo/build system.

Have you considered reading the manual? NixOS is not for you if you don't want to spend time learning the basics.

I have run xilinx vivado inside FHS within 15mins. Mostly figuring what libraries are needed for all binaries.

https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/stable/#sec-fhs-environment...

I really tried making a derrivation for for the nomachine server, but it consists of a wrapper script in bash which for some reason is very long and complicated, this script calls a binary which required some libraries which were missing in the NixOS repo, and everyting assumed the program was installed in /opt/something. Then I tried steam-run, but the program just segfaulted on me when I tried. This is where I reckoned investing more time was not worth it.

On Arch I just do `yay -S nomachine` and call it a day.

But I really believe that someday the NixOS community will catch up, but currently it is not for me, since sometimes I want to get stuff done and not tinker with my system.

I played Dota2 in NixOS for years, so i am not sure why steam wouldn't work for you(it uses FHS too). You can always ask for help in discourse/matrix channel.

> since sometimes I want to get stuff done and not tinker with my system.

Plenty of people do get their work done on NixOS, so good luck with that attitude.

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