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.

  • @geriksonEnglish
    8•2 months ago

    I regret to tell you that at least one commenter on lobste.rs decided to break their 6mo commenting silence to opine that the site design is too “pink”.

    • @ebu
      9•2 months ago

      what level of fragile masculinity have we reached where a bog-standard, modular corporate memphis site using pink as an accent color instead of Tech Startup Blue warrants an evaluation that we’ve “left the tech industry” (read: respectability)

      please. read What is queer typography? and make like. one singular aesthetic decision in your life that doesn’t conform to someone else’s standards

      • @geriksonEnglish
        7•2 months ago

        Some people are salty that the threats of forking were actually backed by existing forks I guess.

        • flere-imsahoEnglish
          5•2 months ago

          lobsters are, frankly, deeply unserious site with laughingly bad moderation; you can freely write “debian has grown an apparatchik class”, and this is an acceptable language, but calling the author of the comment “a libertarian bro who uses words they don’t understand” causes the reply to be moderated.

    • @corbinEnglish
      5•2 months ago

      Can’t believe that doofus doesn’t know about T-Mobile. I find that their profile includes several red flags: invited by the sock, no articles submitted, only comments sporadically with opinion-only short jabs, profile is not filled out after months… I’m not saying that they’re a sockpuppet, but they don’t seem like part of the community.