Lix
lix.systems
Lix is an independent variant of the Nix package manager, developed by a team of open-source volunteers, and maintained by and for a passionate community of users.

it can’t be overstated how important the Nix evaluator is to the Nix ecosystem; it implements the Nix language and package manager, maintains the store, has a hand in the low-level workings of every Nix tool, and is the focus of the push by Eelco and friends to commercialize Nix and keep it appealing to military-industrial interests.

all of the above is why I joined the Aux CLI SIG, which focuses on maintaining a fork of the Nix evaluator for the Aux ecosystem. but just now I saw the announcement for Lix, a Nix evaluator fork that focuses on modernizing the codebase (including gradually replacing C++ with Rust), maintaining correctness (something the upstream evaluator has been notoriously struggling with lately), and doing right by its community. I found myself nodding along to their description of the project and feeling something I haven’t felt since I read the open letter — I’m finally feeling excited for the future of the technology behind Nix.

I have no idea if Lix will become Aux’s chosen evaluator fork, though the Aux CLI SIG can help determine that collectively (and I’ll have many more details on Aux in a post later tonight). here’s what’s truly exciting though: by following Lix’s install steps and pulling auxpkgs-unstable, we can have a package ecosystem and NixOS fork that’s completely independent of the Nix community, and we can have it right now. I’m so excited by that news that I’m going to spin up a host just to give Lix+auxpkgs a try later tonight.

here’s the Aux thread about Lix; so far, there’s a lot of high-level support and excitement for using it as Aux’s evaluator.

  • sinedpick@awful.systems
    6·
    8 months ago

    what is the sentiment on tvix here? is it a no-go because of the Yandex connection? If so it would be a shame because TVL is doing some really cool stuff with their monorepo/non-flake setup.

    • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
      5·
      8 months ago

      generally interesting but the authors themselves have indicated it’s nowhere near primetime (which limits usefulness/impact);. definitely worthwhile as another avenue, as PoC and testing ground, maybe more?

    • flizzo@awful.systems
      5·
      8 months ago

      I understand why they chose this, but I think their failure to recognize the UX improvements of flakes limits their scope unnecessarily. I think they can be much more aggressive about how they cause regressions while acknowledging that maybe having a more structured system is good, even if that system is fundamentally broken in all sorts of ways.

      • sinedpick@awful.systems
        5·
        8 months ago

        I’m reading their fork of nix’s README and they mention that they don’t agree with flakes as a concept at all. I was previously under the impression that there was some technical limitation with their monorepo that prevented flakes from scaling well. Now I’m not so sure.