# Nix42b: User-friendly interface for the Nix package manager
**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377
**Category:** Announcements
**Created:** [January 7, 2020, 12:50pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377 "2020-01-07T12:50:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@juliendehos](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/juliendehos)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2020, 12:50pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377/1 "2020-01-07T12:50:19Z")
Nix42b is a GUI for managing nixpkgs packages (install, run, remove…) on a Linux distribution. The project also provides a script for installing & configuring nix, cachix and nix42b.
The goal of this project is to help using nix as an alternative to snap/flatpak/PPA/… A typical use case is when a user wants a software that is not in the software repository of his/her distribution.
This project is still experimental.
> **[julien dehos / nix42b · GitLab](https://gitlab.com/juliendehos/nix42b)**
>
> User-friendly interface for the Nix package manager.
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### Author:  [@trusktr](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/trusktr)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2020, 8:05pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377/2 "2020-01-07T20:05:05Z")
Cool project! How’d you come up with the 42b part of the name?
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### Author:  [@juliendehos](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/juliendehos)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2020, 10:38pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377/3 "2020-01-07T22:38:49Z")
Thanks.
About the project name: “42” because Nix is a kind of “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” about package management, and “b” because I already had an implementation less satisfactory.
Most importantly, this name is bad enough to encourage other developers to take the idea and start a better project…
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### Author:  [@nh2](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/nh2)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377/4 "2020-01-18T03:19:35Z")
That’s very cool!
I was recently thinking of something similar to this: A GUI configuration manager for NixOS that has all the [options](https://nixos.org/nixos/options.html) so that you can e.g. checkmark them for booleans (and other appropriate things like dropdowns or lists, depending on the corresponding option type). It should read `configuration.nix` and write changes back to it, with a fast instant-search at the top.
Also cool that you used Haskell + GTK, I want to try these new GI bindings soon as well.
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### Author:  [@lebaux](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/lebaux)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2020, 8:43am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377/5 "2020-01-19T08:43:34Z")
On contrary, nix42b is pretty neat name.
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### Author:  [@trusktr](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/trusktr)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 8:42am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377/6 "2020-01-20T08:42:44Z")
> [@nh2](#):
>
> checkmark them for booleans
[nixpr](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/835) isn’t an explicitly typed language (right?). Seems like it would be easier to automatically build a UI if the language was typed.
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### Author:  [@vcunat](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/vcunat)
#### Post date: [January 20, 2020, 9:17am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix42b-user-friendly-interface-for-the-nix-package-manager/5377/7 "2020-01-20T09:17:10Z")
Correct. It’s what I’d call “dynamically typed” (and the type system is relatively weak).