Nix is cool as hell
· 574 words · 3 minutes reading time
Okay so we are starting with nerd talk, but if you don't wanna hear that skip to here
So if you've ever programmed i'm sure you have to deal with dependencies, downloading one thing or another to get something working. On Windows? absolute nightmare. On Mac, can be painful. Linux, ironically can also be extremely painful
flowchart LR
a --> b
a --> c
a --> d
a --> e
d --> b
d --> c
e --> c
Nix trys to fix this by trying to think of all dependencies on your entire system as a graph.
strict digraph {
"readline-8.3p1" -> "ncurses-6.5" [];
"bash-interactive-5.3p3" -> "readline-8.3p1" [];
"bash-interactive-5.3p3" -> "libiconv-109" [];
"bash-interactive-5.3p3" -> "ncurses-6.5" [];
"vim-9.1.1623" -> "gawk-5.3.2" [];
"vim-9.1.1623" -> "libiconv-109" [];
"vim-9.1.1623" -> "bash-interactive-5.3p3" [];
"vim-9.1.1623" -> "ncurses-6.5" [];
}
and these versions are maintained on your computer
as
/nix/store/sha256dksadjksadjkasl-gawk-5.3.2
where the package actually links to the specific version it needs.
some packages have really complex package dependencies
strict digraph {
"c-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"python3.13-greenlet-3.2.3" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"python3.13-greenlet-3.2.3" -> "python3-3.13.7" [];
"luajit-2.1.1741730670-env" -> "luajit-2.1.1741730670" [];
"tree-sitter-0.25.6" -> "libiconv-109" [];
"libutil-72" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"readline-8.3p1" -> "ncurses-6.5" [];
"gettext-0.25.1" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"gettext-0.25.1" -> "libiconv-109" [];
"gettext-0.25.1" -> "bash-5.3p3" [];
"python3.13-pynvim-0.6.0" -> "python3.13-greenlet-3.2.3" [];
"python3.13-pynvim-0.6.0" -> "python3-3.13.7" [];
"python3.13-pynvim-0.6.0" -> "bash-5.3p3" [];
"python3.13-pynvim-0.6.0" -> "python3.13-msgpack-1.1.1" [];
"query-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "openssl-3.5.1" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "xz-5.8.1" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "bzip2-1.0.8" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "mpdecimal-4.0.1" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "tzdata-2025b" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "mailcap-2.1.54" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "readline-8.3p1" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "bash-5.3p3" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "zlib-1.3.1" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "ncurses-6.5" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "gdbm-1.25-lib" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "expat-2.7.1" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "sqlite-3.50.2" [];
"python3-3.13.7" -> "libffi-39" [];
"python3-3.13.7-env" -> "python3.13-greenlet-3.2.3" [];
"python3-3.13.7-env" -> "python3.13-pynvim-0.6.0" [];
"python3-3.13.7-env" -> "python3-3.13.7" [];
"python3-3.13.7-env" -> "python3.13-msgpack-1.1.1" [];
"markdown_inline-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"lua-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"vim-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"libluv-1.51.0-1" -> "libuv-1.51.0" [];
"python3.13-msgpack-1.1.1" -> "python3-3.13.7" [];
"vimdoc-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "c-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "luajit-2.1.1741730670-env" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "query-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "bash-5.3p3" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "python3-3.13.7-env" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "markdown_inline-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "lua-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "vim-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "vimdoc-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "markdown-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-0.11.4" -> "neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" [];
"sqlite-3.50.2" -> "zlib-1.3.1" [];
"markdown-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" -> "libcxx-19.1.7" [];
"luajit2.1-lpeg-1.1.0-2" -> "luajit-2.1.1741730670" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "luajit-2.1.1741730670" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "c-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "libuv-1.51.0" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "tree-sitter-0.25.6" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "libutil-72" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "libiconv-109" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "gettext-0.25.1" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "query-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "unibilium-2.1.2" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "utf8proc-2.10.0" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "bash-5.3p3" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "markdown_inline-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "lua-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "vim-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "libluv-1.51.0-1" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "vimdoc-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "markdown-grammar-neovim-0.11.4" [];
"neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4" -> "luajit2.1-lpeg-1.1.0-2" [];
}
Because each dependency is linked to a specific folder in the nix store with a specific hash associated with it (ignore my fake hashes) the system is reproducible and can be rolled back.
/nix/store/blabla-neovim-unwrapped-0.11.4
/nix/store/etcetc-markdown_inline-grammar-neovim-0.11.4
This idea of linked dependencies and pinned versions of dependencies can in fact be extended to a whole system, installed packages simply become dependencies of the system as opposed to individual parts. They become part of a well oiled whole that dedupes and calculates exactly what is needed for your scenario
Why?
When you have a system that is reproducible and configurable, you stop thinking about losing things.
Some would say you should just back up all your hard drives, do that one at home, one somewhere else and one in the cloud type backup.
But backing up a whole hard drive with configuration is wasteful and expensive.
The only real things you should be backing up is data like photos or documents.
You don't need to backup an application, you just need to backup that you have that program, not the program itself. And even better, with a pinned version. You just need to track it. Nix can do that.
My configuration for my mac, my desktop, my server, TOTAL a couple megabytes. I declare my configuration in files and use nix to deploy it. nix-darwin allows this and is a bit sketchy sometimes because lots of people don't have macs in the nerdy nix community so sometimes packages do work but havent been tested.
A big problem right now is that apples libraries are a bit of a nightmare to package and programs tend to require code signing. If you're building things yourself, you don't tend to have that, even if they are thankfully cached on nixpkgs servers with hydra and cachix but if you change one thing it can invalidate the caches and suddenly you're building everything from scratch. Five hours later and you're compiling firefox and in tears and you are like isnt this just like gentoo .
Right now i have a problem of having fixed a whole lot of things and submitted them as requests to be integrated for home-manager, nix-darwin and even the nix package repository itself, nixpkgs
this was done using GitHub - utdemir/nix-tree: Interactively browse dependency graphs of Nix derivations.