| 5 Jul 2024 |
 Sami Liedes | * Hey. I'm a new NixOS user, already trying to heavily use the documentation. :) Someone pointed out to me that there's two wikis, with a difference. I've been looking at the NixOS manual, but had missed at least this.
Now I'm looking for glossaries. Is this the best we have? https://nix.dev/manual/nix/2.23/glossary.html#gloss-store-derivation
I could perhaps contribute (as in I can make a PR) by... Hm. My initial idea would be to at least
- Sort it; now it's hard to find anything in it
- I actually think that page could use a TOC. Or some kind of a layout change, I'm not sure. Now if I want to find something on it, my best bet is to do a search in browser, and that hits other mentions of the word.
Also I feel it's missing quite a few pieces of terminology that I've run into a lot the past few days. I think at least module, option, store, package, generation, channel, flake, home manager.
Then I don't know what of those are Nix and what are NixOS. Is there a hard split between "Nix documentation" and "NixOS documentation"? (Though if we expect a newcomer to know which manual to look in, maybe that's a problem in itself?)
| 23:18:38 |
| Sami Liedes | When trying to get stuff to work, I've ran a lot into something like "here's a flake you can use" or "if you use home manager, you can do this". I have been able to figure out that I don't use home manager, and perhaps should wait until I'm a bit more comfortable with Nix. The flake thing is a bit more obscure to me. It seems to be either an extension of the nix command, external repositories for Nix packages (derivations?), or some overarching system to enable all of the above that goes above configuration.nix. :D
(Not looking for an explanation of what it is here, but trying to convey the confusion!) | 23:21:20 |
| 6 Jul 2024 |
 fricklerhandwerk | Hi Sami Liedes and welcome to the community! We’ve spent quite some effort to make the first steps with Nix smooth and orient people in the ecosystem. NixOS is only one - of course important - part of that, and despite it’s great benefits it can be considered an advanced use case. | 10:12:23 |
| fricklerhandwerk | Here’s a concise overview of all the big things that have Nix in their name: https://nix.dev/reference/glossary | 10:12:39 |
| fricklerhandwerk | Each of those things has a reference manual, all of them linked in nix.dev. The reference manuals are supposed to only show what’s there, with a few examples, while nix.dev is for tutorials and guides. The separation is not as clean in reality, because there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle, and the time people spent so far was not enough to untangle everything.
Home Manager is unfortunately not listed there yet, and the only reason is that no one got to explain, within the narrative arc we’re building, which role it plays and how to start out. | 10:17:26 |
| fricklerhandwerk | There's the official, actively maintained NixOS wiki at wiki.nixos.org. Together with the NixOS reference manual is where most NixOS documentation lives. But it's very thin altogether, so it should be easy to add useful things as you find them. | 10:23:28 |
| fricklerhandwerk | NixOS documentation does not have all that many helping hands, and the user-facing tools are not in great shape, in my opinion. So there are still endless misconceptions implanted into beginners' minds. If you have the time to dig into it and read the source code, I'm there to answer any questions you may encounter, or point you to better places where to ask them. | 10:25:31 |
| fricklerhandwerk | As for flakes, here's an overview: https://nix.dev/concepts/flakes | 10:26:18 |
| fricklerhandwerk | The Nix manual's glossary is only about Nix concepts. Modules, options, packages are Nixpkgs things, but the Nixpkgs manual doesn't have a glossary yet - I'd help getting a first attempt merged! Home Manager has its own documentation (without a glossary): https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/ | 10:28:53 |
| fricklerhandwerk | As for overall structure and discoverability.. yes, that's still an issue. Many people come to the ecosystem through NixOS, but there's really no one maintaining the user experience there. I've been taking things from the bottom up for the past two years, guiding people who start with Nix on an existing system, and I think things have improved. But NixOS just has very different requirements, and one needs to think it through and find a place where people can go through that journey. These things are up for grabs, so if you really want to change that and show up consistently, you can take the lead on that. | 10:32:40 |
| Sami Liedes | Thanks for the very good explanation :) | 13:23:44 |
| 7 Jul 2024 |
|  maj changed their profile picture. | 21:20:38 |
| 8 Jul 2024 |
|  @zzantares:matrix.org changed their display name from zzantares to demo-reset. | 06:00:24 |
| @zzantares:matrix.org removed their profile picture. | 06:00:33 |
|  @nickkadutskyi:matrix.org left the room. | 19:20:17 |
| 9 Jul 2024 |
|  @ktemkin:katesiria.org left the room. | 04:59:30 |
| 10 Jul 2024 |
 enn_ | In reply to @proofconstruction:matrix.org
Welcome! For suggestions, typically they are made here, in a GitHub Issue, or by implementing the change and making a pull request to the appropriate repository. In all cases there will be an associated thread of comments and follow up suggestions. It never fails to surprise me how time flies. This comment is also an attempt to understand how badly I'll spam the main channel when I comment in this thread... | 21:34:57 |
| enn_ | Download nix-docs-proposal.md | 21:37:41 |
| enn_ | In reply to @enn_:matrix.org
It never fails to surprise me how time flies. This comment is also an attempt to understand how badly I'll spam the main channel when I comment in this thread... clearly in no particular rush from my side 😅 I've attached a brief proposal relating to nix docs for consideration. Am happy to come along to an office hours session if that is useful / appropriate, or just receive feedback here, whatever works 🙂 | 21:39:27 |
| @zzantares:matrix.org changed their display name from demo-reset to Hamlet'sPiedPlumber. | 23:02:34 |
| 11 Jul 2024 |
|  @fastloris:tchncs.de left the room. | 10:53:04 |
|  cafkafk changed their profile picture. | 17:11:22 |
| 15 Jul 2024 |
 willbush | I was trying to try to help out in the nix.dev repo by going through old issues and seeing if any can be closed or easily fixed. Should I ping someone from the issue if I think it can be closed or just leave a comment or something? | 00:23:44 |
| willbush | Redacted or Malformed Event | 01:38:24 |
| willbush | * I was thinking to try to help out in the nix.dev repo by going through old issues and seeing if any can be closed or easily fixed. Should I ping someone from the issue if I think it can be closed or just leave a comment or something? | 02:14:13 |
| willbush | Download issues.md | 05:58:11 |
| willbush | I commented on some issues. Here's a list of what I went through:
| 05:58:14 |
| fricklerhandwerk | In reply to @willbush:matrix.org
I was thinking to try to help out in the nix.dev repo by going through old issues and seeing if any can be closed or easily fixed. Should I ping someone from the issue if I think it can be closed or just leave a comment or something? Hey, thanks for taking the tour! This stuff is very helpful. It’s best to comment on the issue though. Everyone can see it there and follow up. And for me personally it’s easiest to handle because I get notifications and can take it from there. | 06:05:55 |
|  @drupol:matrix.org left the room. | 17:39:40 |
| 16 Jul 2024 |
|  @alex3829:matrix.org left the room. | 23:17:06 |
