| 27 Jan 2026 |
 m | I've installed NixOS at some point last year influenced by someone I follow. Their installation included flakes. Since then, I've read so many things about flakes having been experimental for ages as well as controversial.
What's the general take within the Lix community? Would I just be better off? | 08:10:44 |
 K900 | It doesn't really matter | 08:11:15 |
| K900 | If flakes work for you, use flakes | 08:11:19 |
 Sofie 🏳️⚧️ (she/her) | i want to switch off but I haven't found an integration guide to npins | 08:12:15 |
| m | In reply to @k900:0upti.me
If flakes work for you, use flakes It's more like the only thing I've used 😅 | 08:12:48 |
| K900 | Well is it causing you problems? | 08:13:05 |
 Lotte (it/its)/Cinny (she/her) θΔ& | the thing that made me switch off was that i found myself circumventing flakes more than i used them | 08:13:39 |
| Lotte (it/its)/Cinny (she/her) θΔ& | like importing default/package.nix instead of using flake attrs | 08:13:59 |
| m | nope | 08:14:15 |
| Sofie 🏳️⚧️ (she/her) | well, for me, its more of an philosephical thing, I like the idea of flakes but not how they are implemented | 08:14:18 |
| Sofie 🏳️⚧️ (she/her) | * | 08:14:37 |
 vczf | In reply to @sofiedotcafe:matrix.org
i want to switch off but I haven't found an integration guide to npins I’m using eval-config.nix in my /etc/nixos/default.nix. Essentially,
let
system = “x86_64-linux”;
pins = import ./npins;
pkgs = import pins.nixpkgs { inherit system; };
in
import “${pins.nixpkgs}/nixos/lib/eval-config.nix” {
inherit pkgs;
modules = [ ./configuration.nix ];
}
Then nixos-rebuild -f /etc/nixos switch works fine. My actual config is more complex with per-host modules and overlays and import-tree and a fun mess, but that’s the bones | 08:58:51 |
| vczf | Here’s my flake alias lol:
fk = “nix --extra-experimental-features flakes”;
| 09:00:59 |
| vczf | I’ve been avoiding flakes the second time around since it wasn’t helping me understand nix code in general | 09:01:59 |
| vczf | * I’ve been avoiding flakes the second time trying to learn nix since it wasn’t helping me understand nix code in general | 09:02:17 |
 neobrain | Why aren't you enabling it in your nix.conf directly? | 09:29:52 |
| neobrain | (Or in configuration.nix) | 09:30:26 |
| vczf | I don’t need it except occasionally. I use comma instead of nix run and , -s nix shell | 09:47:12 |
| vczf | * I don’t need it except occasionally. I use comma instead of nix run and , -s rather than nix shell | 09:47:25 |
| vczf | My biggest lifesaver with this config so far is DankMaterialShell being upstreamed into nixpkgs. Not sure if I’d have been able to figure out how to integrate their flake into my config | 09:50:22 |
| neobrain | that's the nix-command feature, not flakes. Enabling either feature doesn't disable the "old" interfaces afaik. but whatever works for you :) | 09:52:22 |
| vczf | You need flakes enabled in order to nix run nixpkgs#cowsay hello
Unless I am mistaken, that nixpkgs is a reference to the system flake registry entry for nixpkgs | 10:01:38 |
| neobrain | right | 10:29:26 |
|  Jez (he/him) 🐦⬛ joined the room. | 10:51:59 |
| 13 May 2024 |
|  zrsk joined the room. | 13:37:30 |
|  dariof4 joined the room. | 14:16:05 |
|  abbe joined the room. | 14:42:22 |
 mjm | lix is now in nixos-unstable, what's the best way to use it in a NixOS config? | 15:47:41 |
| K900 | nix.package = pkgs.lix | 15:47:54 |
| K900 | Probably | 15:47:58 |
