nixos

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All about NixOS - https://nixos.org/

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NixOS resuscitated a 2012 Macbook Air. This thing flies! I was NOT expecting that at all (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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As per title, I am mind-blown by the speed and stability of NixOS on this "relic" in IT terms... On this machine i tested:

Distro	Performance
Fedora	MEGA slow
Ubuntu	OKish
LDME	Fast
Debian	Fast
NixOS	VERY Fast

And the best thing is that I can bring this config with me on any computer! Oh boy, I think i have fallen in love with NixOS

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Thank you. Will try NixOS on a desktop soon. Speed is also very much related to the kernel, so you may want to compare kernels, too. I.e. Debian standard, Liquorix, Debian realtime, MX AHS, etc. I figured the rt kernel generally performs best for non-dGPU systems. And also the WM: KDE is unbearable for me, really slow on old thinkpads, while with XFCE everything is blazing fast.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The kernel is one of the least important components when it comes to performance.

Kernel tweaks can eek out a couple percent here or there for your specific task (while likely regressing in others) but nothing really significant.

FWIW though, we have lqx and rt variants in NixOS (though rt is mainline now with 6.12).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Generally yes.

Here is two examples from my recent experience:

Run custom realtime software on rt and non-rt kernel: Huge difference when I look at milliseconds and latency.
I ran Minecraft recently on the standard and rt kernel, with realtime it performs much better (no dGPU)

I will look into nixOS definitely. Last time I checked must have been 2018 hehe

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Right if you have applications with rt constraints, you'll obviously need a rt-capable OS but that's more a matter of it being available as a feature, rather than being performant enough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

You’re right I got the latest and greatest kernel and that surely plays a factor

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

The NixOS kernel is pretty vanilla