openQA VS digga

I sometimes look at https://openqa.opensuse.org/ when I'm excited for a new package release (example, kernel 6.5) just to see how far along the next snapshot is. While this is interesting, I can't seem to figure out which packages will be in the snapshot when I do this.

anyway, one great thing about SUSE is openqa.opensuse.org/ which does automatic testing that updates work before releasing....and every pkgs is build using Open Build Service (OBS) which is great as that makes sure Distro has more consistent/automatic binary built

I use Tumbleweed since years and although rolling, its more stable than Pop ever was for me. Stable in the sense of daily use and upgrading in particular. Every update you get on OpenSuse is, as a TLDR version of an explanation, run through an automated AI process that checks if everything works, only then the update is pushed out. The AI analyzes pictures of the OS to check. For example, it goes through the boot process and sees if it works, then clicks on certain apps like yast and see if they open, comparing whats shown on screen with a reference picture. You can see whats currently going on in terms of testing here.

I value Greg KH's Tumbleweed. It does everything I want. Thanks to build.opensuse.org and openqa.opensuse.org . If I had to start from scratch, MicroOs, I would learn along the way.

Rolling release players? openSUSE Tumbleweed (backed/tested by OpenQA before released), EndeavourOS (Arch with an installer; however, this could be too advanced when it breaks)

I would recommend openSUSE (KDE) tumbleweed you get the newest pkgs and they are well tested and they have great tools like openQA, obs, YaST etc. and if you have issue with any updates you can easily just rollback to latest working snapshot

And even though Arch stability heavily depends on the user and package maintainers doing everything right (I'm looking at you TimeShift), openSUSE, being backed by a company, have way more resources and robust infrastructure for ensuring their system is stable than Arch does (I have said this a couple of times, SUSE's openQA is incredible).

Tumbleweed is very current - well, as current as your last update.g/ This means that it's very rare that something is rolled out to the community that hasn't been tested as working.

This one issue may clear things up, seems like my config is a little outdated: https://github.com/divnix/digga/pull/385

I'm new to the Nix world, but so far I've come across Divnix's Digga, Numtide's DevShell, and Misterio77's nix-starter-configs.

There are config templates / configuration helper libraries that try to make this easier, for example digga/devos.

https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Flakes, especially the “see also” section. If you’re looking to use for NixOS config across multiple hosts, digga (see the repo for example template) is pretty nice for encapsulating a lot of boilerplate.

The digga library, while being more complex to use than other solutions here, got a pretty elegant solution for it merged a few weeks ago. Still some cracks that are getting smoothed over, but it seems to work.

I like the concept digga/devos uses (unfortunately their stuff kind of is an overengineered incomprehensible mess): They use: - modules: for modules like in nixpkgs (i.e. stuff that defines options and generates configuration based on that options; are included into every host) - profiles: concrete configuration, can be included to host definitions - suites: sets of profiles (so you can for example have a desktop suite with all your profiles with "desktop" configuration options and apply that to all your desktop computers)

For the system, I like the devos template:

https://github.com/divnix/devos

The idea of flakes is how you define inputs, and you define the system (and packages, and shell etc.) in the outputs using the inputs. The inputs are git repos which point to other flakes. You can mix and match these as much as you want (see the devos repo for examples) and when you build the derivation, it generates a lockfile for exact commits in that point in time what were used in the given inputs.

You commit the lockfile and in the other systems where you pull your config from the repo, it uses exactly those commits and installs the same versions as you did in your other systems.

This was quite annoying and hard to do before flakes. Now it's easy.

The problem what people face with building their system as a flake is combining the packages so you can point to `jq` from the unstable nixos and firefox from the stable train. I think this aspect needs better documentation so it wouldn't be so damn hard to learn (believe me, I know). Luckily there are projects like devos that give a nice template for people to play with (with documentation!)

Another use for flakes is to create a development shell for your repo, an example what I did a while ago:

https://github.com/pimeys/nix-prisma-example

Either have `nix-direnv` installed, enter the directory and say `direnv allow`, or just `nix develop` and it will gather, compile and install the correct versions of packages to your shell. Updating the packages? Call `nix flake update` in the directory, commit the lockfile and everybody else gets the new versions to their shell.

Yes, I put the repository in ~/nix. My repository is based on devos, but I am thinking of switching to a different setup, because I don't want to depend on a framework which can be an issue in updating.

I no longer use the official way since I have switched to flakes. I am currently using a devos-based config, which is a boilerplate that depends on a Nix toolchain, but I plan on rewriting the config with flake-utils-plus. You probably can install home-manager using deploy-rs. See the following comment: