Nix-build freezes system on macOS High Sierra with multi-user install
116 points · Open discussionNixOS
nix
C++2014–2026
NixOS / nix
nix
Nix, the purely functional package manager
94Distinct people
133Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
18KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Nix, the purely functional package manager
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
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Also in these discussions
- nixos/nixpkgs · linked in 13 of the same discussions
- nixos/rfcs · linked in 3 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 12:45:45 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year133 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2014-10-11 22:08:41 UTC to 2026-09-26 16:52:12 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 2 | 7 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 21 | 0 | 21 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 11 | 1 | 10 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 26 | 0 | 26 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 21 | 1 | 20 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 17 | 1 | 16 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
Nix
Nix is a powerful package manager for Linux and other Unix systems that makes package
management reliable and reproducible. Please refer to the Nix manual
for more details.
Installation and first steps
Visit nix.dev for installation instructions and beginner tutorials.
Full reference documentation can be found in the Nix manual.
Building and developing
Follow instructions in the Nix reference manual to set up a development environment and build Nix from source.
Contributing
Check the contributing guide if you want to get involved with developing Nix.
Additional resources
Nix was created by Eelco Dolstra and developed as the subject of his PhD thesis The Purely Functional Software Deployment Model, published 2006.
Today, a world-wide developer community contributes to Nix and the ecosystem that has grown around it.
The Nix, Nixpkgs, NixOS Community on nixos.org
Official documentation on nix.dev
Nixpkgs is the largest, most up-to-date free software repository in the world
NixOS is a Linux distribution that can be configured fully declaratively
Discourse
Matrix: #users:nixos.org for user support and #nix-dev:nixos.org for development
License
Nix is released under the LGPL v2.1.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
9 sources> if there's a new type of technology that lets people do just that--set up their own server anywhere and make it accessible via HTTP--then I don't see why we really need IPFS
> In my opinion, the reason IPFS is so hot nowadays is because it's riding the DApps wave where people want to build Ethereum apps with IPFS as a file storage.
Whilst I enjoy reading and learning about dapps, blockchains, etc. they seem very niche at this point: it can be argued whether or not bitcoin is "mainstream" (many have heard of it, but how many have or use it, compared to e.g. bank accounts), but ethereum is even more niche in comparison; using dapps is presumably rather niche even in the ethereum world, compared to those simply speculating on ether or making pump-and-dump ICOs; those building dapps would be even more niche; those building dapps with IPFS f
Read the rest
or distributed file storage would be a niche part of that.
I don't think this is what's driving IPFS.
However, I do come across many potential uses of IPFS every day.
Whenever I see a broken link, especially for some old informational site or tarball or whatever, and Googling for an alternative link just brings up more and more of the same broken link, it makes me wish IPFS were around (most recent example: http://easyldap.exofire.net/files/installer/easyldap-install... )
Likewise, whenever I find myself writing a URL into a file, e.g. a source tarball for a Linux package, I want to use an IPFS hash instead (IPFS is hopefully coming to Nix at some point https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/859 ).
In the latter case, I could add these files to IPFS myself, but I'd probably be the only one using it, and I'm usually less reliable than those canonical HTTP URLs, so those hashes would likely disappear sooner than the HTTP ones.
I have high hopes for IPFS. At one point I thought magnet URLs might solve this. I was pleased when kio-magnet allowed KDE to browse Web sites via magnet links, but even the blog post announcing that seems to be no more :( https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/ew0y4/kiomagnet_what...
I really think the biggest roadblock is the command line interface[1]. To replace Homebrew you only need like 3 or 4 commands. Right now, that means 3 or 4 different nix commands with weird arguments. The way Nix is currently set up is great and make sense for the OS, but Homebrew has a much simpler use-case (single-user, all user land packages, very low barrier to entry). I can't wait until that ticket is addressed.
[1] https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/779
In What is Nix and why you should try itI think biggest ones are i) nix command is a bit complex, but it's getting redesigned [1] & ii) nixpkg definitions sometimes contain a lot of cruft.
I've found Guix and GuixSD, which are a GNU-blessed Guile Scheme-based reimplementation of Nix and NixOS, more aesthetically pleasing. Quite simple and elegant in fact.
The major differences are that Guix DSLs are implemented on top of Scheme, whereas Nix uses a custom DSL. Furthermore, Guix avoids systemd and uses GNU herd instead.
[1] https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/779
In What is Nix and why you should try itThere's an effort to make Nix's CLI better, but not necessarily like other package managers.
The design is at https://gist.github.com/edolstra/efcadfd240c2d8906348
The issue is at https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/779
In Typing NixNix package manager: Perl dependency removed
2 points · Open discussion> In fact, it's probably quite straightforward to implement a docker-like system as a bunch of Nix functions
Oh, it turns out that already exists. Just came across some tests, which appear to chroot into another OS image and run commands. Complete coincidence :)
https://github.com/NixOS/nix/blob/master/release.nix#L202
In Creating bundles with guix packThis article doesn't mention the most significant fallout of the IPFS idea (imo), which is that of .nar deduplication, as detailed in the issue https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/859 (point 4).
Perhaps a nail in the coffin of one of Nix's biggest absurdities.
In Distributing NixOS with IPFSNot quite the same but nix[0] and the nix expression language [1] is also missing from the list.
[0] https://github.com/NixOS/nix
[1] https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#ch-expression-language
In Programming languages that are actively developed on GitHub