nix-gui VS nix-bundle

This is pretty close https://github.com/nix-gui/nix-gui

Nix based aiming at beginners. If it combines/works with https://github.com/nix-gui/nix-gui, then an amazing distro may be created. It would be user friendly, but also extremely powerful, allowing basically everything to be configured via the gui. Both softwares are alpha state, but I am excited to see what they bring.

Maybe https://github.com/nix-gui/nix-gui? I dunno if it can do userspace config though.

Would it make sense to integrate something like nix gui into this?

I remember when I first started using NixOS, as a confused beginner I tried to find a graphical application to manage and edit my configuration. I stumbled upon Nix-Gui, however, I didn’t really like the look, it crashed a fair amount, and I never really figured out how to use it. That said, their idea and all of the hard work they put into their project inspired me to make a similar application that focuses more on simplicity and ease of use.

I was wondering if you are aware of https://github.com/nix-gui/nix-gui and how your tool compares to it

There is also a GUI in development, hopefully it will help casual users in the future.

There's https://github.com/nix-gui/nix-gui for a gui like experience.

Configuration language usage: Probably a major win for programmers, but a major negative for non-programmers. However, nix-gui has shown that there's potential for gui-based nixos configuration. And this might one day be extended to use as part of the graphical installer. https://discourse.nixos.org/t/why-is-there-no-installer-for-nixos/16644/21. Since nix can be serialized and deserialized to json, there's actually a fair amount of interoperability able to be done to manipulate nix configuration using existing libraries.

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.