blotz, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

What’s up with the ux design of nix? I get it’s made for advanced users but still. I’m reading through this guide and man it’s convoluted.

The different ways of installing packages. Either through editing the configuration.nix or running a command. The weird inconsistency of nix commands. nix-env -iA to install and nix-env --uninstall to uninstall. Then updating uses nix-channel --update but upgrade uses nixos-rebuild switch --upgrade. All this to use the package manager. Also haven’t even mentioned flakes or home manager.

It’s a cool OS, but the UX really needs work imo.

[Edit] I do wanna add something else too because I feel like my point isn’t getting across.

It’s okay to have a complicated ui. Especially if your target audience are tech-savvy. But even tech-savvy people have to start as new users. A tech-savvy new user isn’t going to know what the best practices are. Being able to anticipate the steps for installing a package is important for ux. If the commands for installing packages isn’t cohesive/intuitive, then the user has to spend more time looking for guides and learning how to use the software.

People also mentioned a new command in the works. This is great! However, these current commands are being recommended through blogs and nix. New users won’t know about this new command.