<infinisil>
srk: johnw is his nick, he's occasionally on
<srk>
thanks!
<infinisil>
srk: Last seen in #nixos and #haskell yesterday fyi
<srk>
infinisil: is there #haskell-nix possibly? :D
<srk>
well, yeah
<srk>
kind-of
<srk>
nix-daemon[10853]: unexpected Nix daemon error: serialised integer 7167594728127463424 is too large for type 'j'
<srk>
mm, almosty :
<srk>
D
<srk>
my favorite game of guess the serialization format
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<gchristensen>
academic writing is sometimes the worst
<gchristensen>
"As a warm-blooded mammalian species, we humans routinely leavethermal residues on various objects with which we come in contact.This includes common input devices, such as keyboards, that are used for entering (among other things) secret information, such as passwords and PINs."
<srk>
person enters password -> leaves computure.. rarely :D
<ldlework>
getting a job doing nixos evangelism would be so awesome
<hodapp>
just get a normal-ish tech job and then be That Guy
<ldlework>
did that
<hodapp>
you know the one... you whisper "ugh, dependency issues" under your breath and he hears it from 75 feet away and somehow appears by your desk in 15 seconds
<ldlework>
andi-: given there is one viewer, probably not
<andi->
Ah, the mobile version of the page didn't reveal that to me.
<ldlework>
still interesting
<manveru>
oh sweet
<manveru>
seems like they fell asleep though
<ldlework>
lol
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<sphalerite>
srk: re "tell", do you know about MemoServ?
<joepie91>
memoserv messages tend not to be read, in my experience
<joepie91>
tell bots have a much better track record on that
<sphalerite>
really? All hte ones I've sent recently were received
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<manveru>
zimbatm: hey man, are you gonna be in london the first 3 days in august? i'm heading to gophercon and saw it's like 10m from the tweag office
<zimbatm>
Hey manveru, I'll be around
<zimbatm>
The registered address is at our accountants place though so don't go there :p
<manveru>
the devonshire house?
<zimbatm>
Wanna head out after the conference some place?
<manveru>
sure, sounds fun :)
<joepie91>
sphalerite: in my experience it depends heavily on the IRC client and how it displays memoserv notifications
<sphalerite>
ah ok
<joepie91>
sphalerite: sorry, got distracted for a bit; to elaborate... some IRC clients show server notices in the server window (and who ever looks at that?), some display them in the active channel, some actually trigger notifications on anything from memoserv
<joepie91>
so memoserv notifications may be anything from a mental /dev/null to 'all alarms go off'
<sphalerite>
fair enough
<joepie91>
at least with a tell-bot you know exactly where it'll end up :)
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<infinisil>
srk: joepie91: ,tell is now implemented :D
<infinisil>
sphalerite: ^
<__monty__>
infinisil: Are you reimplementing cloudbot?
<__monty__>
Ah : ), guess I won't have to update to 8.4.3 after all, already upgrading my 8.2.2 env.
<infinisil>
I'll implement automatic updates eventually
<infinisil>
And different channels would be nice too, e.g. nixos-unstable.dhall.version
<manveru>
btw, is there some tutorial or something for using dhall for nix derivations?
<manveru>
not sure if there's a point in doing it if i'm not using haskell... but it seems like a nice way to have typed nix
<__monty__>
manveru: Yes, I think it's in the README for dhall-nix? You can use it embedded in nix expressions afaik so shouldn't be too much of a workflow difference.
<__monty__>
manveru: Oh, I guess the snippet already calls mkderivation so maybe you can't call it from dhall.
<manveru>
"The callPackage idiom that nixpkgs uses very heavily for easily updating dependencies. This relies on reflection and recursive fixpoints, neither of which Dhall supports"
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<manveru>
guess that's not essential...
<manveru>
but thanks, that derivation example is already pretty helpful
<__monty__>
Dhall will definitely limit how you write expressions. It's total so general recursion's a nono.
<manveru>
i almost never use `rec` anyway, i prefer let/in :)
<__monty__>
Doesn't nix's let allow recursion?
<manveru>
well, like this? `let a = 1; b = a + 1;`
<manveru>
not sure that's called recursion
<__monty__>
Yeah, it's not. Would require two lets in dhall though.
<__monty__>
Do records in nix allow something like { aField = 1; bField = aField + 1 }?
<manveru>
only if you use `rec`
<__monty__>
Ah. Kinda miss that feature in dhall. Would be nice if limited self-reference was allowed.
<infinisil>
> let a = { inherit b; }; b = { inherit a; }; in a
<{^_^}>
{ b = <CODE>; }
<__monty__>
manveru: There's also this btw. Not sure whether it's more than an experiment but maybe it's more flexible? https://github.com/ocharles/dhall-build
<infinisil>
> let a = { inherit b; }; b = { inherit a; }; in a.b.a.b.a.b
<{^_^}>
{ a = { b = { a = <CYCLE>; }; }; }
<infinisil>
let in's are almost the same as rec's actually
<infinisil>
.
<joepie91>
we're doing hot takes?
<joepie91>
:P
<manveru>
nice :)
<infinisil>
Oh and function attribute arguments are actually similar to rec:
<infinisil>
> f = { a ? { inherit b; }, b ? { inherit a; } }: { inherit a b; }
<{^_^}>
f defined
<infinisil>
> f { a = "hello"; b = "there"; }
<{^_^}>
{ a = "hello"; b = "there"; }
<infinisil>
> f {}
<{^_^}>
{ a = <CODE>; b = <CODE>; }
<infinisil>
> (f {}).a
<{^_^}>
{ b = <CODE>; }
<infinisil>
> (f {}).a.b
<{^_^}>
{ a = { b = { a = <CYCLE>; }; }; }
<infinisil>
,tell srk Hello from ,tell!
<{^_^}>
infinisil: I'll pass that on to srk
<joepie91>
infinisil: request: could you keep track of all the Nix language oddities and bits and pieces that you think of / run across? I think we need better documentation on the language syntax and semantics (and a spec...) but right now it seems to be mostly institutional knowledge
<joepie91>
just a txt file with a dump of them would be fine :P doesn't have to be formatted or well-written or w/e
<infinisil>
joepie91: Well, I have a tiny collection in the bot:
<infinisil>
> :v weird1
<{^_^}>
weird1 = (1.0 * 1) * 1
<infinisil>
> :v weird2
<{^_^}>
weird2 = let foo = "outer"; in with { foo = "inner"; }; foo
<infinisil>
> :v weird3
<{^_^}>
weird3 = let { body = "foo"; }
<infinisil>
(Eval with `> weirdn` to see what it will result in ;P)
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<joepie91>
infinisil: that helps :P but I more mean an ongoing list of stuff like what you've just described above
<joepie91>
> weird3
<{^_^}>
"foo"
<infinisil>
Yeah, that would be neat, I'll consider it
<joepie91>
> weird2
<{^_^}>
"outer"
<joepie91>
> weird1
<{^_^}>
value is a float while an integer was expected, at (string):139:11
<joepie91>
infinisil: thanks :) it'd help a lot
<joepie91>
wait, Nix has floats?
<infinisil>
Yup, since 2.0
<joepie91>
oh, huh.
<infinisil>
Oh, btw, I'm trying to get #nix-lang going (already a couple people there), which is more nix language oriented. Feel free to join if anybody's interested :)
* joepie91
hops in
<__monty__>
infinisil: Does it talk about adding types to nix? Otherwise I'm gonna need to boycot ; )
<infinisil>
Anything nix language related, we've only had one discussion there about the new nix language proposal
<infinisil>
as of now
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<srk>
infinisil: cool :)
<{^_^}>
srk: 2 hours, 8 minutes ago <infinisil> Hello from ,tell!
<srk>
even better :D
<infinisil>
:P
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<ldlework>
infinisil: Psi-Jack is tryin NixOS and lamenting every percieved hiccup
<infinisil>
ldlework: Who dat?
<ldlework>
#linux op
<ldlework>
##linux rather
<infinisil>
Oh lol, I'll have a read
* joepie91
grabs popcorn
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<srk>
sounds fun :D
<gchristensen>
NixOS Evangelism Strike Force in full force
<infinisil>
ldlework: While there is a bit of toxicity in Psijacks comments, I think the strategy "kill them with friendlyness" will work a bit better. You were also a bit jerky in the responses heh
<ldlework>
infinisil: Psi-Jack and i have been knocking heads for years
<ldlework>
you're not wrong
<ldlework>
I can't cope with him, which is why i called for help
<infinisil>
:D
<gchristensen>
yeah I woudln't mind not having him be a user, he isn't very friendly
<joepie91>
infinisil: I've been wondering whether we can't just reuse some other distro's installer
<joepie91>
seems like most of the stuff we care about is generic distro-independent stuff like disk formatting
<joepie91>
followed by two nix* commands
<infinisil>
I've never checked out other installers, what do they do exactly?
<gchristensen>
cc manveru iirc
<joepie91>
mostly what's in the manual :P
<manveru>
:)
<infinisil>
Hmm..
<joepie91>
plus some distro-specific setup that we could just rip out
<joepie91>
the entire 'copying packages' etc.
<manveru>
choose keyboard layout, choose timezone, choose partitioning, go
<joepie91>
the only sticky bit would be the 'generate configuration.nix from user settings'
<joepie91>
yep, basically that
<manveru>
joepie91: do you know C++?
<joepie91>
nope :P
<manveru>
damn
<joepie91>
manveru: why?
<infinisil>
Honestly, I'd go for just abandoning the configuration.nix step by default
<gchristensen>
O.O
<infinisil>
The most difficult part is getting the first installation
<infinisil>
Once you have that going you can always rollback
<manveru>
because we could reuse calamares installer easily if someone could change some of the C++ parts to write config instead of modifying the system
<infinisil>
And configure everything you need after that
<joepie91>
manveru: there's at least one distro installer in Python I believe
<joepie91>
don't recall which one though
<joepie91>
might be Fedora's?
<manveru>
there's another one in vala for elementary and popos
<infinisil>
I don't want users to have to debug configuration.nix problems before they even have an installation
<joepie91>
does anybody outside elementary and gnome core speak vala though?
<manveru>
not me :|
<manveru>
calamares also uses python
<maurer>
Oh god pleas no vala
<manveru>
i'm not really good at python, and i won't touch C++ with a 10 meter pole
<joepie91>
I don't really like Python, and I won't touch C++ with a 20 meter pole D
<joepie91>
:D*
<manveru>
so... yeah
<joepie91>
but "let's write a distro installer in Rust" may not be the most realistic path forward either
<joepie91>
lol
<manveru>
only incompetent fools like us want to make an installer :)
<joepie91>
eh, I object to incompetent :P
<manveru>
:D
<manveru>
eelco uses C++, so it must be the best thing ever, right?
<maurer>
joepie91: So, if you want an installer, you either want a compiled language or a scripting language whose required base is relatively small
* manveru
hides
<joepie91>
manveru: not... necessarily
<maurer>
joepie91: If you end up picking compiled, Haskell/Rust are probably your optimal choices imo
<joepie91>
I mean, we're essentially doing everything from a live CD anyway
<maurer>
If you end up picking scripting, you could consider either lua or python, depending on how lightweight you want it
<joepie91>
er
<joepie91>
maurer: *
<manveru>
maurer: the issue is the partitioning GUI, which is really hard to get right
<joepie91>
anyway I should have gone to sleep an hour ago.
<infinisil>
Haskell++
<{^_^}>
Haskell's karma got increased to 1
<joepie91>
lol
<maurer>
manveru: I feel like that should be possible to rip off form someone else, no idea how hard it would be
<maurer>
manveru: My only controversial opinion on a partitioning guide is that swap should not be present or reccomended by default
<joepie91>
we could always build it with ~Electron~
<maurer>
but be an option that is turned on
* joepie91
runs
<manveru>
joepie91: you may laugh, but i tried doing it in elm :P
<maurer>
Have you considered just using a curses-style interface?
<manveru>
that's how i found out that it's actually a pretty hard problem
<maurer>
It's just for a small menu in the installer
<samueldr>
swap partition should be documented as being needed depending on the FS used
<samueldr>
isn't there issue with swap and some fancier FS like zfs or btrfs?
<maurer>
samueldr: My point is not to use a swapfile over a swap partion
<samueldr>
swap file, for those FS that handle it
<maurer>
samueldr: my point is that swap is rarely correct other than in server environments
<samueldr>
I will strongly disagree with that statement
<maurer>
and just ends up turning a broken program getting killed
<maurer>
into a broken program thrashing disk
* joepie91
disappears off to bed
<samueldr>
(but not try to convince anyone otherwise)
<maurer>
samueldr: Can you give me an example, other than a server, where in the event of OOM, you'd prefer disk spilling to killing big applications?
* infinisil
thinks that this conversation is really on-topic and should be in #nixos or #nixos-dev but it's kinda too late
<samueldr>
maurer: it really depends how much memory your computer has, and the use case
<manveru>
maurer: anw, i'd be fine with a curses based one, but i think they died out
<samueldr>
e.g. on my c720p with 2GB ram I couldn't dream doing anything without swap
<maurer>
manveru: Debian still has one
<maurer>
manveru: I use it every time I install :P
<samueldr>
(because of how modern applications are ram hungry)
<infinisil>
manveru: I am totally in favor of a curses one
<samueldr>
but on my workstation with 64GB of ram I don't use one
<samueldr>
so it's really a situation of "it depends"
<manveru>
problem with curses is the keyboard detection, if i recall right
<infinisil>
(It's not curses, but something similar)
<samueldr>
and not a clear yes and no
<maurer>
samueldr: I think the answer there is to add a caveat indicating that for a small machine you might want swap. Most machines these days come with a minimum of 4G
<manveru>
but well, it's still better than now :)
<maurer>
I dunno, basically since about say.... 2006 or so, every time I've had swap on a machine that wasn't a server
<maurer>
I've regretted it
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<samueldr>
I'd value that in most cases, when the user doesn't know, they probably should have a swap file, or a swap partition, so the bad side-effects of not having one doesn't bite them
<maurer>
Since recovering from thrash is difficult, which means instead of losing the state of one program, you lose all of them
<__monty__>
Hear hear, samueldr. Nix is impossible to use without swap on 2G ram.
<maurer>
But if you have one, you get negative side effects from it in the case of oom
<maurer>
Like, if chrome starts using swap, and I have a file open in vim
<maurer>
I'm going to lose whatever hasn't been commited to the .swp file yet
<maurer>
there's no retrieving it
<infinisil>
I don't think deciding on swap should be automatic or defaulted to anything, the user should be asked whether he needs/wants one
<samueldr>
^ exactly
<maurer>
infinisil: I mean, you're going to end up with a default or reccomended setting in a partitioner
<infinisil>
And link them to some url to find out more about when you want swap
<maurer>
Previous partitioners have defaulted to "you want swap"
<maurer>
I am arguing that our "default" or "guided" answer can point to "you don't" to avoid users running into this issue
<manveru>
just look at the ram
<samueldr>
a small survey of the current defaults in other distros should probably be made, and the results used in the decision for the defaults
<manveru>
if the guy has 32gb, he probably doesn't want swap :)
<samueldr>
(not decide solely based on this)
<maurer>
manveru: Yeah, that could work - look at the ram and allow override for "it's a server"
<samueldr>
manveru: depends if they want to hibernate!
<infinisil>
maurer: Why do we need a default?
<manveru>
ah, true
<maurer>
infinisil: because the point of this is to avoid users manually operating tools and needing to look things up to install, yeah?
<samueldr>
unless it changed, hibernation still requires swap!
<maurer>
infinisil: If you bring up a partition manager, and it tells you to read a guide to figure out what fs to use, whether you need swap, etc
<manveru>
so yeah, just let them know what it is and what it's good for, no need to bikeshed now
<maurer>
infinisil: then it's just our current installation process with one interface instead of 2-3
<infinisil>
maurer: Nah, I just mean to have the installer ask "You want swap mate?", if yes, it sets up swap for you
<maurer>
Hehe, I'm now imaginging if the whole installer was written in that tone
<maurer>
e.g. possible respones of "Yeah, lay it on there" and "Fuck that shite"
<infinisil>
+1 to that!
<__monty__>
Can't we tell people to install ubuntu then blast it away with a curl ... | sh? What we need is a deinstaller, not an installer! : )
<infinisil>
"Alternate tone mode"
<srk>
lol
<samueldr>
infinisil: useful to test i18n
<samueldr>
just like how "pirate" can be used
<infinisil>
samueldr: Ah yes, like Minecraft Pirate language
<infinisil>
:P
<maurer>
Oh yeah, if you add ZFS support, please ensure that you either hide or do not support crypto. People keep fucking turning it on without reading about how it's constantly on fire
<maurer>
then complaining when they find out that a not-ready-for-release feature is on fire
<maurer>
It's happend to the extent that a ZFS dev friend of mine has explicitly complained to me about nixos people coming in there sans clue
<infinisil>
ZFS native encryption is pretty stable now though? I haven't heard of much fires
<samueldr>
all those options should point to sane defaults for not-a-poweruser, but DEFINITELY give an escape hatch for power-user~ish users
<maurer>
Oh yeah
<srk>
installers can be pain, I know pretty well how to layout stuff manually and sometimes persuading an installer is nearly impossible (Anaconda <3)
<samueldr>
not like how the current fedora and ubuntu installers completely annihilates any effort for manual partition schemes *when you want something different than expected* (smh)
<srk>
recent anaconda is terrible, previous one (centos 6) is quite nice
<infinisil>
In the installer I want: A checklist of stuff that needs to be done, which are constantly updated. This applies to both a mostly automatic installation and a manual one
* srk
worked at RH before
<infinisil>
E.g. if you mount /mnt correctly, it detects that
<infinisil>
And you get a checkmark on that point
<infinisil>
So you always know what you still need to do in order for it to probably boot, even when doing it manually in the terminal
<samueldr>
or even a "I swear I want to skip this step" button for each step
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<srk>
And one huge button 'Fck this, just gimme shell'
<ldlework>
I have heard the argument against swap three times now.
<maurer>
srk: Yeah, debian's had that button for years, it's quite nice
<ldlework>
that's all i have to contribute.
<infinisil>
"I have over 300 confirmed Linux installations, skip this step"
<ldlework>
u wot m8
<gchristensen>
srk: oh cool :)
<manveru>
i'm gonna need to see your paperwork
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<ldlework>
can i say that another awesome installer feature would be if I could point it to my nixos config and have it do the install but end up with my properly configured system
<__monty__>
infinisil: I'm not sure that shouldn't be inverted. If you have to reinstall 300 times you're doing something wrong : >
<infinisil>
Ah yes that would be nice
<ldlework>
__monty__: ha
<infinisil>
__monty__: Sysadmin or something maybe
<infinisil>
How is localization in NixOS in general btw? Is this all DE specific?
<manveru>
infinisil: i think nix isn't translated at all though
<srk>
now doing something similar to nixos test framework to be able to run tests on hardware
<srk>
parsing remote serial + fencing, fun
<infinisil>
manveru: The package manager you mean? Yeah, probably best to not have languages for CLI programs
<infinisil>
Only GUI I'd think
<samueldr>
au contraire (;)) CLI commands also should be translated
<manveru>
so only people who speak english should be able to use NixOS?
<infinisil>
Hm...
<manveru>
i mean, it's kinda self-selecting right now :)
<ldlework>
I can do the Lojban translation
<infinisil>
I mean, should flags and subcommands be different for different languages
<manveru>
no
<infinisil>
Should it be "nix bauen" for german?
<ldlework>
no
<manveru>
but manpages or help
<infinisil>
That would be kinda funny though heh
<manveru>
that'd be a nightmare in japanese :P
<infinisil>
Haha yes
<infinisil>
Okay so only docs
<manveru>
try getting IME to work in a TTY...
<srk>
manveru: I wonder what brings ppl to nixos.. for me it was like 'wow, this thing really works and can be tuned as one desires'
<infinisil>
But I mean, has anybody here ever seen a translated man page??
<ldlework>
srk: I was trying to solve dotfile management for myself once and for all. so I used home-manager on OSX.
<ldlework>
I eventually decided I would like my whole system to work this way.
<srk>
also nix, binary caches (I was gentoo user previously as well)
<samueldr>
it's generally docs + messages
<samueldr>
so parameters are all the same, but the error messages, success messages, any message is localized
<manveru>
for some reason i think that's mostly the case for GNU stuff
<srk>
ldlework: and it even scales to clusters..
<infinisil>
Hmm.. Yeah I'm not sure how I feel about that
<samueldr>
infinisil: you could install debian in your $mother_tongue (assuming not english) and look at how apt changes
<infinisil>
It might be a pain to translate a lot of stuff, but in the end anybody not speaking english will have a helluva hard time to get comfortable with NixOS
<samueldr>
it's time to change this!
<infinisil>
The whole community and everything is in english
<samueldr>
you're welcome, I know how important it can be to have IRC log accessible
<samueldr>
it's often cited as a reason *not* to use IRC
<samueldr>
the fact that the messages are somehow ephemeral
<samueldr>
(and I do agree that it is a con, which can have sane solutions as this one is)
<srk>
I'm heavy ZNC user/evangelist/provider :D
<srk>
but I like logs cause they are indexed
<gchristensen>
head -n1 ~/.weechat/logs/irc.freenode.#nixos.weechatlog => 2016-01-15 19:56:56 --> gchristensen (~gchristen@unaffiliated/grahamc) has joined #nixos
<srk>
but botbot.me /o\
<samueldr>
I'm thinking more about how some problems are sometimes handled entirely through IRC, without any traces outside
<samueldr>
it's a bit like how there is the oral tradition with litterature
<srk>
heh yeah and hive mind effect
<samueldr>
(tangentially, oral tradition is an anti-pattern that can be observed in workplaces, especially often with onboarding new employees)
<srk>
with the assistance of factoids its pretty mad :D
<samueldr>
oh, and install that, and install that, oh yeah, tweak that setting, now add that
<samueldr>
doesn't work?
<samueldr>
oh, right, $other had to do something
<srk>
just run nix-shell.. :D
<ldlework>
at my last job i tried to promote nix as a workstation management homogenization strategy
<ldlework>
there's so much fud
<samueldr>
I forced documentation down the throat of $client :)
<LnL>
I lost my logs from before 2016, totally didn't think about it when reinstalling that machine :/
<samueldr>
then forced nix down as a chaser
<Guanin>
Nice, finally got my nginx on nixOS hardened so that SSLLabs is maxed out in all categories, HSTS preloading does not complain about unnecessary headers and everything seems sane :)
{^_^} has quit [Remote host closed the connection]
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{^_^} has quit [Changing host]
{^_^} has joined #nixos-chat
<manveru>
Guanin: can you put that on the wiki? :pretty_please:
<gchristensen>
I might be doing interviewed on a podcast
<infinisil>
gchristensen: Thanks for adding {^_^} to #nix-lang!