archbox VS nix-bundle

I also found this project which streamlines the process a little https://github.com/lemniskett/archbox

you mean something like archbox? https://github.com/lemniskett/archbox

If you don't mind the storage penalty, it looks pretty convenient to set up an Arch Linux chroot and use packages from the AUR when you need to: https://github.com/lemniskett/archbox/blob/master/NIXOS_INST...

Nixpkgs itself is several times the size of the base Arch Linux package collection, and by ‘non-unique’ package count, Nixpkgs is also much larger than the AUR. In addition to Nixpkgs, you can find Nix packages in several community ‘overlays’ for Nixpkgs as well as Nix's own user repositories.

You can check to see whether everything you currently use/need is conveniently available for NixOS in a comprehensive-ish way through the combination of these two web search tools:

• for Nixpkgs/NixOS: https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=21.05

• for NUR: https://nur.nix-community.org/

NixOS also includes native Flatpak support.

Fwiw, packaging most things for Nix is very easy. I left Arch in ~2010 because at the time the package management stack and default repos on Arch basically sucked compared to most distros I'd used and liked, and from then on I decided that if I wanted software that wasn't in my distro's repos I'd just package it myself. After taking a little time to learn the tools on whatever distro I was using, I never missed Arch or the AUR. Compared to other distros, packaging normal software from source is usually exceptionally easy on NixOS.

If I were you I'd just dive right in and hit Nix's channel on Matrix with the Nixpkgs manual in hand if I found something I wanted to use that wasn't already packaged. But you can fall back on the options outlined above.

I admit that there is an element of, "but I chose an obscure and challenging linux variant, waaah why isn't it supported" here, but (a) there's currently no flatpak and (b) when, for goodness sakes, will major linux projects begin packaging for Nix/NixOS as a matter of course?

It's not hard, and the benefits go far outside merely supporting Nix, as e.g. a flake.nix file would allow this project to generate docker images, and appImage images, as basically afterthoughts. (See e.g. https://github.com/matthewbauer/nix-bundle.)

Nix flake support would also provide a perfectly reproducible build environment, which can help clarify dependencies, and thus help the project build achieve idempotence, but I'll save the full shill for some github issue.

In fact, I'm inclined to roll up my shirtsleeves and help make this real.

https://github.com/matthewbauer/nix-bundle perhaps?

Another way to approach this would be to advocate Nix as the build system for Flatpak or AppImage. Don't know what the status is of nix-bundle, but if it is possible to turn a Nix package into an AppImage with little extra work that would be ideal.

Nix itself is more focused on "distribute from this host with nix, to this other host with nix".

Though, here is e.g. https://github.com/matthewbauer/nix-bundle, which is supported as an experimental command in nix 2.4.

I believe this tool does: https://github.com/matthewbauer/nix-bundle

Yes, it's extremely powerful once you truly understand Nix.

There are efforts to improve documentation, but it still is lacking (I think the biggest problem is that Nix is so big, not just the OS but it can be utilized as a build system).

Just with NixOS is not exactly clear how can you for example build your custom image.

I think https://nix.dev/ is approaching the documentation from the right direction.

There are also many pieces that people built that you need to find.

For example some things that I found accidentally:

* https://github.com/matthewbauer/nix-bundle

* https://github.com/cleverca22/not-os

Unfortunately those side projects often have even worse documentation.