this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
480 points (98.2% liked)
Linux
48397 readers
692 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I keep seeing people mentioning NixOS, what's so unique about it that people like?
Biggest package repository, a very strange package manager that lets you reproduce exact environment for any package. But also takes a bunch of time to understand and you basically have to learn a whole new programming language to use it if you don't want to copy-paste examples.
Kind of like flatpacks but it's done with symlinks and fancy changes to the build systems. I think it fits better for the developer environment.
Nix has "over 80 000 packages," according to their website. The AUR has 85719, so they're pretty close. This website seems out of date, as the AUR is listed as having 73914 packages, but it says that Nix is bigger. Either way, there's a lot.