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ruffsl

@ ruffsl @programming.dev

Posts
150
Comments
76
Joined
3 yr. ago

I'm a robotics researcher. My interests include cybersecurity, repeatable & reproducible research, as well as open source robotics and rust programing.

  • Why NixOS is the Future - YouTube

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  • nix-ld has been really helpful. I wish there were some automated tools where you could feed at the binary, or a directory of binaries, and it would just return all of the nix package names you should add include with nix-ld.

    Also if there were some additional flags to filter out redundant packages because of overlapping recursive dependencies or suggest a decent scope of meta package to start with for desktop environments, that'd be handy.

  • Why NixOS is the Future - YouTube

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  • I think the other 99% would appreciate having some deterministic config, and not necessarily even using Nix either.

    I'm kind of perplexed as to why no other distro hasn't already supported something similar. Instead of necessitating file system level disk snapshots, if the OS is already fully aware of what packages the user has installed, chron jobs and systemd services they've scheduled, desktop environment settings and XDG dot files, any Debian or Fedora based distro could already export something like a archive tarball that encapsulates 99% of your system, that could still probably fit on a floppy disk. Users could backup that file up regularly with their other photos and documents, and simplify system restoration if ever they get their laptops stolen or their hard drive crashes.

    I think Apple and Android ecosystems already support this level of system restoration natively, and I think it'd be cool if Linux desktops in general could implement the same user ergonomics.

  • Why NixOS is the Future - YouTube

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  • Let's say you're building a gaming desktop, and after a day of experimentation with steam, wine, and mods, you finally have everything running smoothly except for HDR and VRR. While you still remember all your changes, you commit your setup commands to a puppet or chef config file. Later you use puppet to clone your setup onto your laptop, only to realize installing gamescope and some other random packages were the source of VRR issues, as your DE also works fine with HDR natively. So you removed them from the package list in the puppet file, but then have to express some complex logic to opportunistically remove the set of conflicting packages if already, so that you don't have to manually fix every machine you apply your puppet script too. Rinse and repeat for every other small paper cut.

    I find a declarative DSL easier to work with and manage system state than a sequence of instructions from arbitrary initial conditions, as removing a package or module in Nix config effectively reverts it from your system, making experimentation much simpler and without unforeseen side effects. I don't even use Nix to manage my home or dot files yet, as simply having a deterministic system install to build on top of has been helpful enough.

  • Why NixOS is the Future - YouTube

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  • How does distrobox implement display forwarding? Does it support Wayland, or is it using bind mounts for xauth and X11 unix sockets?

    With approach does it use for hardware acceleration? Does it abstract over Open Container Initiative's plugin system, e.g. Nvidia container tool kit or AMD's equivalent?

    Is it inconvenient if any of your applications use shared memory, like many middleware transports used for robotics or machine learning software development?

    I'm more familiar with plain docker and dev containers, but am interested in learning more about distrobox (and toolbox?) as another escape hatch while working with NixOS.

  • Why NixOS is the Future - YouTube

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  • Oh, neat! Is this the project you're referring to?

    Looks like Bazzite is listed as an example derivative image. I've heard good things about that OS from newer Linux users' perspectives. But is ublue something an individual user could personally customize, or more like something a development team or community project would build up from?

    The landing page referencing layers and the Open Container Initiative, so is this more like a bootable container using overlay file system drivers?

    One attraction I appreciate with Nix is the ability to overlay or overload default software options from base packages, without having to repeat/redefine everything else upstream, e.g. enabling Nvidia support for btop to visualize GPU utilization via a simple cuda flag. Replicating lazy-level-evaluation with something buildkit ARGs would be hectic, so do they have their own Dockerfile/Containerfile DSL?

  • Why NixOS is the Future - YouTube

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  • It's a steep learning curve, but because much of the community publishes their personal configs, I find it a lot simpler to browse public code repos with complete declarative examples to achieve a desired setup than it is to follow meandering tutorials that subtly gloss over steps or omit prerequisite assumptions and initial conditions.

    There are also plenty of outcroppings and plateaus buttressing the learning cliff that one can comfortably camp at. Once you've got a working MVP to boot and play from, you can experiment and explore at your own pace, and just reach for escape hatches like dev containers, flatpacks or appomages when you don't feel like the juice is worth the squeeze just yet.

  • Why NixOS is the Future - YouTube

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  • However, you then don't have to mentally remember every change you made when you eventually migrate to a new machine or replicate your setup across your laptop and desktop while keeping them synchronized. It takes me a few hours to setup and verify that everything is how I need on a normal distro, though that may be a byproduct of my system requirements. Re-patching and packaging kernel modules on Debian for odd hardware is not fun, nor is manually fixing udev and firewall rules for the same projects again and again.

  • Stop Killing Processes! Make Ctrl+C Meow Instead… (with Signals) - YouTube

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  • I've been using TTS systems for decades with accessibility use cases, so other than quality audio books that necessitate a skilled performing narrator, I no longer mind.

    In fact, I prefer legacy Bayesian phonetic models over the newer convolutional and recurrent neural networks, as their hard consonants and robotic consistency in pronunciations and intonation are much easier to listen and discern at higher words per minute, like at 3x or 4x natural speech rates for everyday blind reading, as compared to modern mumbling/slurring of syllables or artificial stridor and other breathy sounds.

  • Stop Killing Processes! Make Ctrl+C Meow Instead… (with Signals) - YouTube

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  • I recall the author saying they're not a native English speaker, and preferring international intelligibility over regional voice-over, plus the production convenience while traveling and script writing without a quiet audio recording environment. See around 7 min mark:

  • What Git clients do you use?

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  • What Git clients do you use?

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  • Mainly the official git CLI for controlling branches and sub modules, and sometimes the GitHub CLI if quickly checking out a pull request from a forked repo.

    Also use the source control tab in VSCode rather often, as it's really convenient to review and stage individual line changes from its diff view, and writing commit messages with a spell check extension.

    If it's a big diff or merge conflict, I'll break out the big guns like Meld, which has better visualizations for comparing file trees and directories.

    About a decade ago, I used to use SmartGit, then tried GitKraken when that came around, but never really use much of the bells and whistles and wasn't keen on subscription pricing. Especially as the UX for GitHub and other code hosting platforms online have matured.

  • Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year? (Uğur Erdem Seyfi)

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  • Thank you for your work!I would not have liked encountering this bug in the wild.

  • Corsair HX1200i 2025 Power Supply Monitoring Now Works Under Linux

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  • What user software are folks using to monitor and log PSU sensor data?

    Would be nice to correlate power usage and efficiency with system load percentage over time and type (CPU vs GPU).

  • Introducing UniFi OS Server for MSPs

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  • I think it stands for Managed Service Providers.

  • Introducing UniFi OS Server for MSPs

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  • I'm still using an old UC Gateway, doubt my homelab will outgrow it.

  • Farewell Benchmarks Of Intel's Clear Linux On AMD EPYC Shows More Performance Left To Tap

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  • Jean-Baptiste Kempf - Kyber: a new approach for real-time video and controls streaming based on Quic - YouTube

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  • I hope this rust library can make its way back into Moonlight and Sunshine projects.

  • Realizing Arch isn't for me after updating broke VLC

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  • One thing I appreciate about NixOS is the ability to use overlays and override package sources. For example, overlays can be used to selectively install unstable and stable packages alongside each other:

    While there may be caveats, this approach has been working for me just fine, as I can install VSCode from unstable to get the most recent monthly releases as they roll out, but then pin the rest of my desktop environment to stable to limit anything else shifting underneath me unexpectedly.

  • 🔒 Setting Up Headscale & Tailscale on NixOS: A Zero-Trust Networking Guide for ❄️ NixOS - YouTube

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