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A next-generation package manager called Nix provides a simple distribution-independent method for deploying a binary or source package on different flavours of Linux, including Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, Fedora, and Red Hat. Even better, Nix does not interfere with existing package managers. Unlike existing package managers, Nix allows different versions of software to live side by side, and permits sane rollbacks of software upgrades. Nix is a useful system administration tool for heterogeneous environments and developers who write software supported on different libraries, compilers, or interpreters.
However, I don't see why it will be adopted when other similar solutions have been met with a shrug.
Unless a large selection of packages are available to download for Nix, it will meet a similar fate. The idea seems to be similar to Gobolinux, though Gobolinux works by using a changed filesystem.
A better solution IMO is Virtualbox. If I'm running, say, Ubuntu, and get tired of all the broken/old packages, I install a minimal Arch system that will run easily in 256 MB and gives me access to the latest versions of everything. If something serious goes wrong (it never has), I can just delete the image and rollback by opening an old working copy.
These "distro independent" solutions seem more like a hack than a fix to me. Every distro wants to do its own thing. Running multiple distros is an easy solution. With the improvements in hardware that have followed the release of Vista, the idea of running just one distro, or one release of a given distro, is fast becoming obsolete.
Need this about 3 of 4 years ago, needed it bad.
Right now, not so much.
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Unless a large selection of packages are available to download for Nix, it will meet a similar fate. The idea seems to be similar to Gobolinux, though Gobolinux works by using a changed filesystem.
A better solution IMO is Virtualbox. If I'm running, say, Ubuntu, and get tired of all the broken/old packages, I install a minimal Arch system that will run easily in 256 MB and gives me access to the latest versions of everything. If something serious goes wrong (it never has), I can just delete the image and rollback by opening an old working copy.
These "distro independent" solutions seem more like a hack than a fix to me. Every distro wants to do its own thing. Running multiple distros is an easy solution. With the improvements in hardware that have followed the release of Vista, the idea of running just one distro, or one release of a given distro, is fast becoming obsolete.