CIRCLE WITH A DOT

@lanodan @elly @mgorny I guess I can put it like this: if you're the kind of person for whom your computer is an ongoing experiment which you constantly work to optimize and set up exactly as you want, and hearing "you can declaratively manage your whole computer's configuration!" makes you go "whoa, that'd be neat" instead of "who are you and how did you get into my house", then it is probably worth trying out, worst case scenario you'll learn some things as you go. Otherwise don't bother, other distributions are a significantly better fit for you.

@lanodan @elly @mgorny I had a conversation with someone on here recently, and we settled on that "NixOS solved all of our problems by replacing them with a set of different, more interesting problems"

And yea, on desktop it's worth it if you're a very specific type of person who has these problems more often than usual, is tired of it, and would actually find Nix's problems to be more interesting to deal with. Which does not apply to most people.

It really is an absolute gamechanger if you're managing multiple servers, though, I can provision bare-metal machines, VMs and containers that are already preconfigured for my use case with just a few lines of code, so I agree that the benefit for system administrators is far more objective than on a personal workstation.

@elly @lanodan @mgorny I guess a better comparison as to what NixOS is is not Gentoo but rather those Arch-based distributions that were really popular a while back that were just Arch packaged together with a live environment and a graphical installer. Still Arch with all of its capabilities, but with a negligible barrier to entry.

Except then you still had the Arch Wiki to consult in case of problems, now there's. a few third-party booklets I guess? NixOS wiki is somewhat usable now, but still the easiest way to find out some things is by reading the code in nixpkgs, and a new person sure as hell ain't going to be doing that

@elly @lanodan @mgorny I guess the difference is 1. the quality of docs, 2. the barrier of entry. NixOS has had famously shitty docs for ages now (I legit learned more through just reading a friend's config and asking them questions about it than through any online resource I was able to find), and combined with the fact that you very much can Just Install It and use it like a normal distro without any of the shitfuckery people normally get up to with it makes people just do that, and not learn about its internals and advanced usage.

Compared to Gentoo, where if you have no previous knowledge you won't get far without consulting the wiki, *and* the wiki is extremely high quality and easy to follow, so people end up doing that and actually learning about how their system works.

@9lore @elly @lanodan @mgorny I have a good rule of thumb for this - if you use NixOS in any serious capacity then sooner or later you'll probably run into a problem that requires you to either package your own software or debug someone else's package. If that seems too scary, then that's a very good indicator NixOS probably isn't for you, at least yet.

@gloriouscow But honestly, just following the right people and hashtags is doing wonders for avoiding current dramas. Literally every major Fediverse drama since I joined I have found out about not by seeing the drama itself, but by seeing people *complaining* about the drama. And just as well now, I don't really see anti-AI posts that much, I'm chilling over here with my bunch of queer artist and hacker creatures who might mention it from time to time but overall just... continue to do their own thing.

So please, take some agency over your online experience. There's no algorithm in here to feed you only things that keep you watching ads for as long as possible. You have to put some work in yourself in order to create a nice experience, but I promise - it's worth it. (2/2)

@gloriouscow Something I hadn't seen anyone suggest: you don't owe anyone to follow them or see their posts. It's *your* online experience, not theirs. "You make me feel bad" is reason enough to block/mute/unfollow someone who raises your cortisol, even if you don't think they're a bad person.

Additionally, I don't know what server software your instance is on, but Mastodon has... well not "good" per se, but definitely workable personal moderation tools. Keywords and hashtags can be blocked with reasonable accuracy. (1/2)