Nix Documentation - Public Room Timeline

	Nix Documentation	419 Members
	Discussion about documentation improvements around the Nix ecosystem	86 Servers

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Sender	Message	Time
25 Nov 2023
@bzzm3r:matrix.org	but these tend to be very short too?	06:55:00
@bzzm3r:matrix.org	not entirely sure, but keep in mind that i'm not on the docs team, and just a bystander. i'm sure someone more qualified will be around soon in order to help answer this definitively	06:55:44
@bzzm3r:matrix.org	In reply to @proofconstruction:matrix.org I was just confused about "why the thing people seem to be using the most" is not the thing we are also documenting. Indeed this is a giant problem: the thing people are using the most is also the most broken. This is not really even my opinion, but a matter of technical fact. I even use flakes for my own system configurations, but this is still the case largely because I, like so many, adopted that workflow without any awareness of the problems lurking beneath the surface (also at the surface; flake.nix is not even a valid Nix file!) I made an attempt to switch from a flakes based NixOS configuration, to a `npins` managed standard `configuration.nix` based one. I almost got there, but couldn't figure out the last trick (getting nixos-rebuild to use the pinned packages instead of whatever it has in store). I found various bits of information about it on the internet (in the context of `niv`, which I think is mostly applicable here, but ultimately couldn't figure out the last little bit (getting `nixos-rebuild switch` to work), and I am conceptually lost enough now that the most I can do is write out a Discourse post discussing the situation, and hoping for the best. So, for now, I am tucking my tail between my legs and trotting off back to `flakes.nix`. The solution might lie in simply doing a live reboot from an iso that is built that is built using an `npins` managed `nixpkgs` from the start (rather than `rebuild switch`ing into it). But yeah, I can see why you'd just continue carrying on with `flakes.nix`, if yours is already quite complicated (mine isn't, it's just a glorified pinned entrypoint into my configuration modules).	20:53:24
@bzzm3r:matrix.org	I've also had one small victory in the last two weeks, which is that I spent quite a bit of time, writing quite a bit of Nix. (I got caught up in a very silly project, that just happened to have this side-benefit: configuring my starship prompt using only Nix.) In general, Nix-lang is far more readable for me (I'm not sure why I found overlays confusing anymore; it's just attribute overrides 🤷, kind of like a functor).	20:55:08
@bzzm3r:matrix.org	While I'm not sure I can make it to weekly meetings (anxiety), I think I'm slowly clobbering together enough to eventually contribute more documentation.	20:56:40
26 Nov 2023
infinisil	In reply to @bzzm3r:matrix.org I made an attempt to switch from a flakes based NixOS configuration, to a `npins` managed standard `configuration.nix` based one. I almost got there, but couldn't figure out the last trick (getting nixos-rebuild to use the pinned packages instead of whatever it has in store). I found various bits of information about it on the internet (in the context of `niv`, which I think is mostly applicable here, but ultimately couldn't figure out the last little bit (getting `nixos-rebuild switch` to work), and I am conceptually lost enough now that the most I can do is write out a Discourse post discussing the situation, and hoping for the best. So, for now, I am tucking my tail between my legs and trotting off back to `flakes.nix`. The solution might lie in simply doing a live reboot from an iso that is built that is built using an `npins` managed `nixpkgs` from the start (rather than `rebuild switch`ing into it). But yeah, I can see why you'd just continue carrying on with `flakes.nix`, if yours is already quite complicated (mine isn't, it's just a glorified pinned entrypoint into my configuration modules). Yeah `nixos-rebuild` really can't do that, which is why I wrote a small wrapper in https://github.com/infinisil/sanix	07:03:14
infinisil	I wrote this exactly for what you were trying :)	07:04:42
@olafklingt:matrix.org	where do i find the functions pkgs.nixos and pkgs.path in the nixpkgs manual? only found nixos but pkgs.path nowhere.	13:54:26
infinisil	olaf: When you're looking for Nixpkgs docs, the question shouldn't be "Where is", but rather "Is there" xD	18:39:04
infinisil	Sounds like PR material to me!	18:39:31
@olafklingt:matrix.org	Yes it should be in nixpkgs manual.	18:43:11
@olafklingt:matrix.org	I added a commit to the vm tutorial pr with a detailed description of the reproducable command. It's not finished yet but i would like to know if it is the right direction to add such a description. https://github.com/NixOS/nix.dev/pull/807/commits/ff5c7fad92acc9deb4fcd40d39eeb9300cd41cfa	18:49:22
infinisil	https://discourse.nixos.org/t/announcing-nixlang-wiki/36049 😕	19:08:23
sterni	just one more separate documentation resource just one more I promise it’s gonna fix it	19:33:23
@bzzm3r:matrix.org	In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org Yeah `nixos-rebuild` really can't do that, which is why I wrote a small wrapper in https://github.com/infinisil/sanix 🤩	23:49:51
27 Nov 2023
asymmetric	idk if this is the first outside contribution to nrd, but it's a good validation of the choice of moving to python that we got one, imo! https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/269942	15:36:38
28 Nov 2023
	curtismchale joined the room.	15:47:32
curtismchale	In reply to @infinisil:matrix.org https://discourse.nixos.org/t/announcing-nixlang-wiki/36049 😕 I saw this and wondered if there was something I could do to help the official docs team. So I'm here now as an experienced dev, but NixOS neophyte. Maybe I can help document stuff when I get stuck because the docs seem to have some decent assumed knowledge that I don't currently have.	15:49:18
	curtismchale set a profile picture.	15:53:48
infinisil	curtismchale: Awesome! I think one of the easiest things to help out with is to just read through nix.dev, to both learn about Nix, and to discover the structure of nix.dev. And if you find any problems, anything that's unclear or doesn't work, file an issue in the github repo, or even better, submit a PR to fix it :)	16:17:49
Minijackson	hey! I've had someone skim through the Nix language basics tutorial of nix.dev, and he mentioned something quite interesting, there's no mention of the `if ... then ... else ...` construct	17:42:46
Minijackson	is there somewhere else where it's introduced ?	17:43:00
Minijackson	* is there somewhere else where it's introduced?	17:43:01

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