this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
129 points (86.4% liked)
Linux
48008 readers
843 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Does nix have access to the AUR?
No.
But Arch supports around 14,000 packages and any branch of Nix has around 100,000 stable and 100,000 unstable packages.
How the fuck does Nix have so many. And who's packaging them all.
Do different versions of the same libraries count as an entry in that seemingly enormous number by any chance ?
If what I hear it's true than once a NixOS user is up and running adding additional packages and up-streaming them appears to be a fairly simple process.
Something like Arch has ~10,000 packages in the main repo and the AUR has ~70,000 packages. It's hard to get something into the Arch repo, very easy to get something into the AUR. NixOS seems like it may be a middle ground where by the time someone can grok the system they should only be a step or two away from contributing to it.
I'm sure it's a factor. I don't use Nix but from what I gather the easiest way to run a package is often to add it, and upstream are pretty accepting. The number isn't that wild if you compare it to something like Arch+AUR. Also Nix wants to do it all and replace stuff like pyp and other native package managers, I think pyp alone is responsible for >5000 nixpkgs.
If you are counting different versions then it's hundreds of thousands...and I think you can mix and match them.
NixOS, package availability is comparable to Arch with the AUR. Arch has a total of about 80-90 thousand packages (That is, the regular repos + the AUR), and NixOS has over 80,000 packages in its own repos, that are actually maintained, and are more up to date than Arch (meanwhile, Arch often has a bunch of outdated and unmaintained packages in the AUR, such as all the Waybar packages that haven't been touched since April (there was a new release in June).
I'm assuming you mean the ability to run an AUR-helper and automagically install from PKGBUILDs; in which case, the answer is no. IMHO, lack of AUR access isn't as big of a deal as it used to be since Flatpak covers a good portion of what I have downloaded from the AUR in the past.