I like flakes a lot, speaking as a type of user which I’ll call a “casual packager”.

This is to say that I like being a good citizen and sharing my packaging efforts… while also simultaneously feeling totally uninterested in becoming an owner-for-life. Flakes let me share a package without those pesky strings – when the user installs a package using one of my flakes, a personal lockfile gets generated at the latest git commit and that’s that. If the user doesn’t like the version they get, then the power is in their hands to choose a different git ref via their own generated lockfile.

Obviously this is something of a user footgun, especially for consumers of high-impact or security-critical applications, but most of those things are already important enough to get packaged. When it comes to niche, infrequently updated stuff, this approach works super well and helps to draw many reluctant packagers like myself out into the open.

This article is good, really good. Somehow despite having used plenty of builders in the past I barely even knew half of the stuff documented here.

I’m particularly interested in learning more about the special paths that derivation outputs can provide – looking forward to seeing that section expanded.

Oh, in that case it’s not horrifying at all. Who doesn’t keep 3 years of past salary in their checking account for the occasional rainy day?

For everyday writing I like to use MessagEase. It’s highly ergonomic thanks to the 3x3 grid and deeply customizable. I’ve been happily using it for over a decade now (it continues to receive updates) and for the past 8 years I’ve been able to touch-type on it without looking at my fingers

The documentation is all in-app, so I’ve taken the liberty of screenshotting the relevant pages for illustrative purposes:

Unlike a traditionally managed system, you manually keep an install list of all used system packages (including current version). It’s conceptually similar to how conventional package managers might have a mirror configuration list. Within this list, you’re also sprinkling in individual package options which Nix will automatically apply for you (the options that Nix “sees” are manually coded in by whoever did the bundling of that particular Nix package).

In other words: you’re treating packages as if they were configuration and bundling that in with the actual configuration under a unified framework. This basically means that you can think of Nix packages as wrappers bundling the base software plus instructions for a config file generator. That’s effectively the “gimmick” of Nix: config files are routinely regenerated, so in everyday use they’re conceptually equivalent to an abstract interface between the Nix package manager and the software proper.

Worth mentioning at this point is the fact that the core Nix ecosystem is all about managing system-level software; Nix handles sudoer stuff and steers clear of interfering with user-level dotfiles. Using the hyprland wayland compositor as an example, you can see that the module only provides flags for things like NVIDIA patches and allowing xwayland – options for shadows/colors/animations are omitted entirely because they should (under the Nix philosophy) be configured with user dotfiles.

Now with that being said, Nix itself is merely a package manager, so it’s entirely possible to splash in as a companion to your distro’s main package manager (similar to how you can globally install npm/pip packages). This is handy because Nix’s ecosystem is highly invested in enabling users to write their own packages (i.e.: Nix Flakes). In fact, some Nix users exclusively use it as a framework for creating and managing custom packages whenever the need arises to install something not already provided in their distro’s package repository.

Of course, the most vocal Nix users are all-in and use NixOS. With NixOS, Nix is your native system package manager. Everything system-level becomes Nix-managed, though the same leave-userspace-to-dotfiles philosophy still applies on the user level. This strategy enables cool stuff like seamlessly syncing your system environment between multiple workstations and having guaranteed safe restore points through the use of nothing but a handful of config files.

Beyond that, for the total Nix freaks, there’s the Home Manager Nix package, which allows you to install and manage userspace applications Nix-style. This is handled separately from Nix/NixOS proper because userspace configuration is a much larger and faster-moving target. If you use Home Manager to fully capture your userspace, it’s nigh-guaranteed that you’ll need to get your hands dirty by writing custom Nix modules. As you may imagine, this process can be a big pain… though it comes with the benefit of being able to seamlessly carry user applications & dotfiles across any distro that supports the Nix package manager (including Darwin).

Even if all of the operating systems were playing on a fair & ideal field, I do not think Linux would come out as the clear winner.

The Linux ecosystem is stakeholder owned. That is to say that design decisions are made by experienced users for experienced users. Whenever an ergonomic tradeoff exists between ease of use and expressiveness, ease of use loses. New users sense this and feel implicitly unwelcome. It’s the original sin of open source software as a whole, really.

I don’t necessarily take this state of affairs as a bad thing, but it does lead me to think that the dominant OS software will always be a commercial product of some variety. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a proprietary greed-fest like Windows, but at the very least the top-level stakeholders of that specific project need to be directly motivated by user adoption. AOSP (aka: Android) would be a decent example of something like this working in the wild for an open source project (Google attempting to claw back control notwithstanding).

You’re of course within your rights to remain unconvinced, but I fail to understand the mindset that would lead a reasonable bystander to look at what Ms. Reeves has said thus far and think “there’s a significant chance that this is untrue”. Why? For what purpose? She stands to gain nothing by lying unless you start imagining that a much broader conspiracy is somehow at play.

If you’re willing to entertain the idea of a hitherto unsubstantiated conspiracy from one side, then why not also suspect that LMG will conspire to hire a crooked auditor or otherwise hide unflattering findings? Why take anyone’s word for anything?

The fact she is a woman is different than the majority, however there are other women at LMG

I don’t know how to respond to this without speaking condescendingly. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to trust me when I say that women can still be subjected to workplace harassment in situations where they aren’t literally the only girl in the building. I’ll leave it at that unless an actual woman wants to step in and expand on this subject further.

not all the men at LMG are sexist so most likely at least one person from one of those camps would object/want to do/say something

That’s just how power works. If you’re in the minority, your needs and concerns get less attention. If you’re in a very small minority, they become practically invisible. Organizations aren’t immune to this. Sexist outcomes can and will readily emerge from systems where none of the individuals directly intend to do a sexism.

As evidence, I’ll point to the statistic itself. A gender gap as steep as this one doesn’t happen by random chance. The only way you get this far skewed is with a feedback loop.

My question is if she had such a bad experience, why hasn’t anyone else said anything, or at least put an anonymous negative review on Glassdoor or something? […] (and the turnover is pretty low for LMG if I’m not mistaken, so that also doesn’t make sense)

Indeed, why is that? Why would she have such an abnormaly bad experience at this particular company? I can’t seem to think of any particular traits that she might have which would have caused her to be treated differently. If sexist comments and sexual harassment are such a problem, then why do people like Gary, James, Ed, Nick, Colton, or Luke apparently seem blind to it? I have no idea what disparity in the distribution of power could possibly account for this phenomenon!

Inevitably, there will be times in one’s life when another’s attempt at humor fails to amuse. When striken by such terrible tragedy, take heart, for you have the knowledge that it’s just your opinion, bro.

It’s not difficult to guess: they got EA’d. IBM’d. FaceBook’d. Their startup got bought up, hollowed out, and dissolved. All in the name of killing off competition and padding staff rolls.

I’m disappointed. Jesus of all people should know how dangerous it is to ride without proper gear. Where’s the helmet? Where’s the armor? And, Christ… are those Sandals?? ATGATT!

The story was divine retribution for blasphemy against arch

Nintendo DS => Nintendo 3DS => New Nintendo 3DS => New Nintendo 3DS XL

Need some extra AAs for your PDA so you can finish that thought?

Reasonable people will disagree… but no, probably not. This is a feature which websites can choose to use in the same way that websites can choose to use notifications. Even if you dislike the fact that web browsers provide the option, it’s the website itself that’s actively choosing to impose on you.

Now, the counterpoint to this argument is that the feature in question will most likely further strengthen Google’s position as the market leader and lock out new independent browsers. This is certainly true and similar logic has indeed been employed in cases like the Microsoft antitrust case. With that being said, Google still has that extra layer of abstraction sitting between it and the actual mechanism of action (i.e.: independent website owners who want DRM). Think of it like the Uber of anti-trust law.

Be Evil, Do Ads

Here is my list:

• emacs - emacs

Compared to nothing. I have used Nvidia graphics cards under Linux for many years. The last one was a GTX 1070. In order for the cards to work, I had to install the driver once with the command pacman -S nvidia-dkms. So the effort was very small.

Kernel modules work until they don’t. I’m genuinely glad that you’ve had a good experience and – despite appearances – I’m not interested in provoking a vendor flamewar… but the fact remains that among the three major patterns (builtin, userland, module), modules are the most fragile and least flexible. I’ll cite this response to my parent comment as an example.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Nvidia, many people do not judge objectively. Torvalds’ “fuck you”, for example, referred to what he saw as Nvidia’s lack of cooperation with the kernel developers. And i think he was right. But it was never about how good or bad the graphics cards were usable under Linux. Which, unfortunately, many Linux users claim. Be it out of lack of knowledge or on purpose.

That’s a fair point, but to a certain extent I think this overlooks the importance of developer sentiment on a project like Linux. Take (Intel) Macbooks as an extreme example: kernel developers liked the hardware enough to support it despite utter vendor indifference. It’s clearly a case of hypocrisy compared to NVIDIA who (at the very least) participates, but at the end of the day people will show love for the things that they love. NVIDIA remains unloved and I do feel that this bleeds through to the user experience a fair amount.

In any case, you’re right to say that legitimate criticisms are often blown out of proportion. Developer problems aren’t necessarily user problems, even if we sometimes romanticize otherwise.

I’ll believe it when Mastodons fly