this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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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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Okay, folks. NixOS needs your help. No bull. I'm talking documenters, designers, coders, package maintainers. Why? Because the NixOS community has a lot on it's plate right now.
Like I can understand why flakes haven't become standardised, why it's still marked as unstable, even though it's pretty much feature complete, and that's because nix is a complex environment builder and the current contributes are taxed to the max.
But what is nix?
Nix's job is to create reproducible environments where you can put any library, any service, any application. It does this through compile time flags and modifying ELF headers to isolate applications on a system to their own, exclusive UNIX path. These are linked together as clojures, or a dependency graphs, that can share libraries, applications and services intetchangably with each othet, or use another version or patched version without causing any dependency conflicts.
You can fire up pretty much whatever you want and it will be reproducible elsewhere. It's like if you took a package manager, build environments, as well as VMs and micro services and make them kiss.
You can spin up a nix environment on any supported system and expect it to run 1:1. This however breeds complexity and there's a lack of NixOS contributors.
If only you spin up a nix environment on a VM or use it to replace your current build systems (because nix can use several build systems in one single environment), and then contribute back with some changes to nixpkgs, then you are helping to bring about the most powerful deployment tool since kubernetes.
No joke. Check out how you can contribute, because at the end of the day learning nix is gaining a new superpower.