#+title: So, tell me about Nix

- [[https://ghedam.at/15490/so-tell-me-about-nix][source]]
- tags :: [[file:../20200629132801-nix.org][Nix]] [[file:../20200629132817-linux.org][Linux]]

* Notes
- Nix is:
  - A package manager
  - A programming language
  - An operating system (NixOS, a Linux distro)
- Nix can be used like =brew= or =apt=
  #+begin_src bash :eval never
  # this will install curl
  nix-env -iA curl
  #+end_src
- Nix's selling point is that it's capable of reproducible builds
- One thing that's unique about Nix (the package manager) is that you can create
  ad-hoc development environments
  #+begin_src bash :eval never
  # this spawns a new shell with curl installed
  # once this shell is exited, it will no longer be available
  nix-shell -p curl
  #+end_src
- =nix-shell= allows for the creation of isolated development environments
- NixOS, unlike other Linux distros, allows a user to specify their
  configuration using the Nix package manager
  - For example, if I wanted to create a user whose default shell was =zsh=, I
    could do this via a configuration. The rest of my system's configuration
    would live here too
  - This also allows for rollbacks to any previous configuration
  - Nix, being a [[file:../20200604222704-functional_programming.org][functional programming]] language, basically describes system configuration like =state = nextState(currentState)=

* Resources (from article)
- [[https://github.com/rycee/home-manager][GitHub - rycee/home-manager: Manage a user environment using Nix]]
- [[https://github.com/NixOS/nixops][GitHub - NixOS/nixops: NixOps is a tool for deploying to NixOS machines in a ...]]
- [[https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin][GitHub - LnL7/nix-darwin: nix modules for darwin]]
- [[https://nixcloud.io/tour/][A tour of Nix]]
- [[https://ebzzry.io/en/nix/][A Gentle Introduction to the Nix Family]]
- [[https://nixos.org/nixos/nix-pills/][NixOS - Nix Pills]]