Two minix Later

[2025-10-19]

GitHub registers that it has been two months since I initialized my nixos-config repo. I guess it is time for a review :)

On a beautiful and stormy night, my arch broke. I was trying to remove some old packages that I used some time back once. I removed a package, and Arch was unable to boot up from then on. I was unaware that it was a vital program for the arch system . Google lookups and YouTube solutions were no help , and I was 4 hours away from my exam.

Another reason for the switch was that my surgeon friend had tried it and really glorified it. And an itch to try it piled up even more when I read about how I can't break it. As a tinkerer, I really triggered by that.

I am happy here, I am confused here, and I can't escape.

Firstly, I am happy here because I actually managed to sort of break NixOS. I installed someone’s dots and rebuilt them on my system. I wanted to try out that reproducibility "idea". It worked more than I expected. It changed my password. I tried to switch back to my old generations, but my password was changed even on that side, and I couldn't log in. I managed to recover it because I still had root access to my NixOS so I just used passwd utility. Shout out to nix Discord mods for the help.

Secondly, I am confused here. In the space of two months, I left NixOS for Void because I wanted to compare performance and RAM use. I thought NixOS applications were so big as the builds were around 250mb even for small applications. The same apps had smaller binaries sizes on my Manjaro friend's computer. I wonder whether NixOS builds from source for some application even on the stable branch. I also had problems with Void and Nix package manager as it wasn't apparently conversant with init, Void's systemd equivalent. In terms of Ram usage and performance, it was all the same.

Lastly, I can't escape. One reason I ended up moving back from void was that in nixos, once I fix an issue with an app, I have fixed it forever and everywhere. Another plus is that I can also easily uninstall packages without having to worry about dependency breakages.

I also just love the generations builds. I love going to a previous build if the current one has problems. The fact that my whole system build can be changed by switching git revsets is freaking amazing!!!!!!!