Oh I didn’t know powershell did that too! It sure beats endless parsing errors

I don’t really mind having a non-POSIX shell since it doesn’t prevent bash scripts from working, but I get that if you want portability bash is still best since it’ll work mostly anywhere.

I feel my sanity slowly slipping away while reading…

Yeah if you need to work on machines with bash it makes sense to stick with it. Sorry you have to work on Windows… how is powershell compared to bash?

I don’t know python but xonsh seems really cool, especially since like nushell it works on both linux and windows so you don’t have to bother about OS specific syntax

That’s interesting I hadn’t thought about the JSON angle! Do you mean that you can actually use jq on regular command outputs like ls -l?

Oil is an interesting project and the backward compatibility with bash is very neat! I don’t see myself using it though, since it’s syntax is very close to bash on purpose I’d probably get oil syntax and bash syntax all mixed up in my head and forget which is which… So I went with nushell because it doesn’t look anything like bash. If you know python what do you think about xonsh? I

I’ve also been using zsh until now, it’s clear it’s a massive improvement over bash. No more accidentally pasting code into the terminal!

I wasn’t even looking for a new interactive shell, zsh is fine, I was looking for a new language for shell scripts because I’m tired of bash’s legacy quirks… but the interactive nushell was too cool to resist!

I don’t either, but if no one ever tries github projects with zero stars how are they supposed to get stars?

1 is my goal, though I think I might have reached 2 once. Because shitty ADSL 😭

My very grateful thanks to people who can afford to do more.

Finally managed to enable VSCode extensions without doing it imperatively or using home manager I’m so happy I could cry 😭 😭 😭

It actually wasn’t even that bad, I’m just terrible at understanding documentation I guess

	(vscode-with-extensions.override {
		vscodeExtensions = with vscode-extensions; [
			bodil.blueprint-gtk          # Gtk Bluprint language support
			ms-vscode.makefile-tools     # Makefile language support
			bbenoist.nix                 # Nix language support
			ms-python.python             # Python language support
			naumovs.color-highlight      # Color Highlight
			ms-azuretools.vscode-docker  # Docker
			donjayamanne.githistory      # Git History
			seatonjiang.gitmoji-vscode   # Gitmoji
		];
	})

Wow I had no idea you could do that, I’ll try it thanks ! °o°

I think I might have been misusing the term “outdated”, the packages are a few versions behind but they do work. I haven’t run into packages that didn’t work except because of path issues (fixed by using steam-run).

Wait how does Nix Unstable have a better score than the AUR? With four times less maintainers? That’s really impressive, especially considering how much more simple Arch packages are to make.

Yes it’s a headache if you don’t have a clue what you’re doing and suck at coding like me, but the good parts might make the headache worth it depending on what you want of your distro. A week ago I couldn’t wait to get a new laptop to reinstall Arch, but now I’m actually wondering if I should keep trying Nix… OH GOD HAVE I CAUGHT THE NIX BRAIN CANCER? 😭

Oh cool that’s good to know!

There’s one evil genius responsible for both JSON and JavaScript? °o°

Succinctly : “OH GOD MY EEEEEYES”

I’m not a fan of nested parenthesis… but aside from that I don’t know much about the language, is it more convenient? Does it also suffer from the error messages from hell problem?

That link is amazing… they even have maps 😂 !

I’m sure it’ll get better once I’m more used to it, just venting a bit. Sorry for the rant

Yes emoji use is proportional to the decrease in my sanity after those two weeks

I’ve been stuck on Nix for two weeks because I thought it would be a good idea to put a distro I had never used but that wouldn’t break on my backup laptop in case my main one ever broke. I just couldn’t force myself to install debian, not that I have anything against debian, it’s just… kinda boring, while Nix seemed very interesting. IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME I SWEAR.

Guess what happened… I broke Arch. Then I reinstalled and the next day the laptop broke. Then the next day I tried to get my data back and the hard drive broke. So, backup laptop with Nix for two weeks…

• I really really really like the declarative stuff. Installing packages through config files is so nice I’ll never lose track of what I’ve installed ever again 🥰 🥰 🥰 I was already using a git repo for all my config files + GNU Stow to symlink everything to its proper place, so adding the .nix configs to that setup was very easy.
• Having a clean system on rebuild is great. No more clutter left everywhere that I don’t know about, no more half broken stuff left lying around.

But…

• It’s not Arch. Not Nix’s fault, but I kept hearing that it would be “like Arch but declarative”… and it’s really not 😑 Everything seems over-complicated vs as simple as possible.
• I absolutely hate the language.
• What’s with those error messages from hell???
• And speaking of hell, every language that can’t just use indentations like YAML instead of cluttering the code with {} and [] and () should have been relegated to the darkest pit of hell 20 years ago. But points to Nix for being less awful than JSON (the comma on every line but not the last thingy make me want to build a time machine to go murder the grandparents of whoever thought it was a good idea)
• Packages are out of date even in the unstable branch (I know it’s unfair since it’s not trying to be a rolling release… but… but…)
• Where are the source packages? Is that an Arch only thing? I liked having packages that automatically use the latest git commit without needing to manually install from source and manually reinstall each time I want an update like a medieval peasant… 😭
• Nix packages are weird. Even someone who’s terrible at coding like me can read Arch PKGBUILDS… I miss you Arch 😢
• Apps not working because of paths that don’t exist on Nix… what do you mean I need to patch the package myself? 😭 But at least there’s steam-run, great preserver of what’s left of my sanity.
• Can’t wrap my head around installing some stuff like VSCode extensions (the advice I got was "don’t bother just do it imperatively…) (Edit: Finally figured it out!!!)
• Wiki is often sparse on info and not very helpful if you don’t already know what you are doing (and I clearly don’t 😅)
• Hidden configs. Some stuff works on its own like pipewire even though I haven’t installed or configured it (I went with a minimal install that just gave me a tty then build from there, no DE), and how it’s already configured is not in the default config files. It’s very confusing not knowing why some stuff works and how it’s configured by default.

But it’s kinda growing on me. Like mold. Or cancer. Brain cancer.