Hi guys,
definitely, I don’t want to start a flame war, but I am just looking for more information about the two different build system by somebody who is more experienced than myself.
Some of you have experience with both systems?
Why did you pick one instead of the other?
Cheers,
Simone
I would also be interested in a thorough comparison. I have not used Spack, but I think their reference documentation is very good. The way to select packages on the cli seems to be a bit closer to the module system, and Spack can also use the module system.
They document how to use impure dependencies (such as mpi, openssl, blas) because it may make sense for security or computing reasons. Using impure dependencies is typically not done with Nix (except maybe on Darwin/OSX).
Considering their target audience (HPC) you can see the expressions typically have computing-related flags to quickly enable features, such as mpi. These things can be done, and are done with Nix in Nixpkgs as well. I do think the expressions are a bit less organized in Nixpkgs. On the other hand, Nixpkgs has 40 times as many packages.
edit (12/20/2023): This Hacker News thread (archive) from 3/20/2023 answers the question way better than my ramblings below.
From a Q&A with Todd Gamblin (tgamblin), author of Spack:
Q. What are the differences between Spack and Guix? Is there a comparative list available
somewhere I can refer to?See Concept: use any package version, post 31; Spack focuses on allowing you to build any configuration and flexibility. nix and guix don’t have packages with all the parameters spack has, also they require root to build. Spack packages are in python; spack does concretization (dependency resolution); nix/guix do not. Spack has more extensive compiler/arch/virtual dependency support. Spack binaries are relocatable, do not
require root.A. Todd: Guix is the GNU version of Nix and is in scheme. Difference is spack packages are
templated. In those systems, you end up having to hack packages a lot more; more
cumbersome to swap a compiler in a Nix build or build with a different parameter. In spack
you’re writing Templates in python. Spack focuses on combinatorial versions and Guix and Nix
focus more on reproducibility.
Outdated but here is an older one :
https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/installing_software_for_scientists/attachments/slides/2437/export/events/attachments/installing_software_for_scientists/slides/2437/20180204_installing_software_for_scientists.pdf
The Spack repo also cites a paper from 2015, The Spack package manager: bringing order to HPC software chaos that does mention Nix at a few places (3 or 4 mentions) but its concise description of Spack’s architecture and behaviour makes it easier to do direct comparison with Nix than using the official Spack docs. (The paper sits behind a paywall unfortunately so you’ll have to find ways around it.)
There is also the flatiron/nixpack hybrid; Nix lang frontend and Spack backend, if I read that correctly.