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Does Nix's break from FHS cause problems?
(lemy.lol)
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.
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Now you'll have a zillion users trying to install software in ways that violate all the assumptions that NixOS operates on, but which are still tightly coupled to your NixOS config. Now updates to your system, or even seemingly unrelated config changes (through some transitive dependency chain) can easily break that software.
So now we've basically removed half the advantages that motivate Nix/OS in the first place, and when stuff breaks it will look like it's Nix's fault, even if it isn't.
On the other hand, nixpkgs is already the most comprehensive repository of system software out there, and for 99% of packages Nixifying it is pretty trivial. Hell, my NixOS config does that for 3 different GitHub repos right inline in my config.nix