Requesting recommendations, new to Nix

1

Hi Everyone,

I have been distro hopping, and after reading all the rave reviews of NixOs, I have decided to give it a shot.

I have installed Nix on my AMD Powered Asus Laptop and if all looks great, I will replace Debian with Nix on the desktop.

I understand to install any application, it needs to be done via Terminal. However, is there a Package manager like Discover which can be installed?

And as a Newbie with above minimal experience on Arch, Fedora and Debian, is there any recommendations you can make which can make these 2 computers perfect as workstations?

Thank you in advance,
Michael

2

You could install Discover and install programs from flatpak if you want.

3

Hello,
Thank you for your rapid response.

Would you be able to provide the Terminal commands to perform this please.

4

It seems that the package for discover is libsForQt5.discover

Open /etc/nixos/configuration.nix with any text editor with root permissions and find the line where it declares your system packages (or user packages if you want to install stuff per-user): “environment.systemPackages = with pkgs”

Then you can add the package name libsForQt5.discover

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5

Alternatively, if you want something more friendly to non-programmers, you can try https://snowflakeos.org/, which is NixOS aimed at a less techy userbase. It includes a GUI package manager, among other things, though it’s clearly not complete yet.

They have a friendly matrix channel, too.

6

You can try the Nix Software Center. However, suggest staying on stable release. You can try in a sandbox before installing for real.
I suggest NixOS Configuration Editor till you start hacking. These will give you a typical Linux user experience without the very painful usual nixos start.

7

Hello,
Thank you all for the suggestions and support so far.

I don’t mind diving into the deep end, as I am in the process of expanding my company and one of the new products I am developing is a Linux Based in-vehicle tablet.

The more I sink my teeth into development situations, the better.
Of course, this will be once I finish setting these 2 computers up as workstations.

Once I have both these puppies brought up to speed, I would like to make a donation. I will ask for donation details, hopefully sooner than expected

8

I guess that once you have installed one package through configuration.nix, you can do it for all packages, as it is the correct way to do it with nix (correct me if I am wrong).

Is another layer of package manager really recommended ?

9

everything is already documented Donate | Nix & NixOS

10

I would advise to learn flakes and don’t bother with the other ways of doing stuff.

While they’re technically an “experimental” feature everybody uses them and due to that they had become the de facto way of using nix and nixos.

11

Hi Everyone,

I have had a shot at working with Nix, and with the intensity of my company expansion commitments, I have taken the easy way by going onto Snowflake OS.

Thank you all for your supports, and I will be making a donation, once I have both computers working as perfect workstations.

Regarding Snowflake: Can I request for support here (changing to SDDM greeter and removing GNOME & installing KDE Plasma)? As I do not see any forums for Snowflake OS.

Thank you again for your support everyone

12

You can always ask, but people around here will likely know less about the GUI config manager.

I’d recommend checking out the matrix space for more specific questions about snowflakeos: https://matrix.to/#/#snowflakeos:matrix.org

13

Hello everyone,

Good news, I am going to be sticking with NixOS. I have managed to download and install Software Center, with the help of the following video;

If I can recommend, please watch the entire video before sinking your teeth into it.

Thank you again everyone, absolutely grateful.
Once the laptop gets increased RAM and a bigger NVME drive, I will give it a breath of fresh air (NixOS), then I will be making the donation.

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