Post #2785326

2026-05-22 11:48 UTC

Flatpak, docker, and nix cover a lot of things but have their annoying edge cases and paper cuts, especially in comparison to snap in some ways for some apps. I’m still pretty new to nix - I’ve only recently started experimenting within a NixOS-loaded VM. So, please pardon me for my ignorance. But would you be so kind to point me towards its “annoying edge cases and paper cuts especially in comparison to snap in some ways for some apps”? Thank you in advance :) !

Replies (1)

@moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 2026-05-22 15:06

I use nix to get many cli apps (on arch/cachyos), but the flakes and non flakes split makes things very tough, and causes this annoying documentation split. And then certain things can only be done via flakes and vice versa. I try to limit my use of nix to using home manager to ONLY install packages, but even then there are annoying things. Like for example, many users may gravitate towards nix-env for installing packages, not understanding that oops, you aren’t actually supposed to use nix-env. nix profile install is better and more supported, but it’s flakes only. Or, another thing is that nix apps on non nix distros have no gpu access/hardware acceleration. I have a home manager config to enable that: github.com/moonpiedumplings/…/home.nix#L32 But it is something that is insane to make someone learn how to do for just installing programs. But the latter issue doesn’t affect nixos.

Open ##2788043