Comments by "LoneTech" (@0LoneTech) on "NixOS: Everything Everywhere All At Once" video.

Also possible, but takes some setting up, on Debian using snapper, some subvolumes and hooks. It covers the rollback function, but not so much the background building with atomic live switching.
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The basic answer is yes; that's why he had that section about configuring ld. Another tool to handle that is buildFHSEnv.
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Meanwhile, I feel that outside NixOS some rather fundamental things are being senselessly missed. Like having updates not interfere with work; it can update while I work, I can switch when it's done, and I can shut down when I'm done, not have to wait for an update procedure that may or may not prevent my system booting the next time.
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It's somewhat inaccurate. Packages do share dependencies, but they can have their own. So e.g. if I have three programs using one library they might all share, but that oddball package requiring a different version can have its own, without the library packager needing to do anything special. Theoretically it may go awry with things like dbus that is designed to fail across versions. The unreasonably large packages scenario is exactly what e.g. snap and docker do, where the dependency is something like "Ubuntu 22.04 with Gnome" rather than "Gtk and GMP" and not even Ubuntu can share that with the installed system; it's a separate container image.
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It's a mixed bag regarding storage. Those snapshots must be stored somewhere. On the other hand, Ubuntu doesn't package some core applications like Firefox but instead requires duplicate copies of their dependencies managed by Snap. The main upsides with NixOS for you might be that you can roll back updates and updates don't need to interrupt you. I find Ubuntu's popups saying "close this program, I want to update it" rather dumb, particularly when it doesn't do the update if I follow the instructions.
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@sofiedotcafe There is indeed value in that. I switched to Debian because the text based package manager state was fixable with a text editor, unlike RPM. Similarly the installer permits you to do mix manual and automated steps, and the deb packages themselves can be handled with ar and tar.
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@TheZabbiemaster Packages are containers for system components; not just programs, e.g. notepad, but libraries, e.g. direct3d, drivers, data such as timezones, keyboard mappings, and UI text in various languages, documentation and so on. The point of a package system is to track these components so you can install, remove or upgrade them. E.g. if the library handling WebM has a bug, we fix that package rather than everything that contains a web view separately. Linux distribution packages appear "many" compared to Windows for a few reasons. One is that Windows bundles them to crazy degrees, e.g. service packs, .NET framework, suites like Office. Note that the latter isn't included, and that's a reason for Microsoft to ensure what is included underperforms. Another is that Linux distributions unify the view; we have rough cuts like the Tasksel profiles, but rarely make no efforts to hide the full lists. Some distributions take different approaches, too, like not separating development sections from runtime parts, or platform specific binaries from shareable data. But the core answer is simpler. We have many packages because there are many users, developers and devices, and they all have choices. I don't have to stop using my SpaceOrb 360 just because Windows 11 exists.
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@outergod This was at least a year before apt was developed.
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@leonardzamoldinov3822 The G in gnu is silent.
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Side note: This would be more watchable if it could go 2 minutes without youtube forcing a half dozen extra ads....
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@NoBoilerplate ... or didn't work, which is when you needed the rollback, and the reason it didn't work is usually in some state external to your configuration file so you can't replicate the working system by copying the configuration file. I have an apt setup that makes system snapshots after apt finishes making changes. It has downsides, in particular that nix can build and set up the updates without interrupting the current system in a way dpkg doesn't. Merging system and user configuration in one file is also a distinct feature, but it comes at a cost e.g. when I can't get Nix to make vi point to nvim.
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I suspect the number of packages is rather inflated by things like the entire Hackage being automatically duplicated for each GHC version. And not in the ways that fit together like Stackage, either. All too often I try something in NixOS only to find the package exists but doesn't work. The most baffling choice was the nix command itself removing the search function (it WAS working) and replacing it with instructions to enable new experimental functions that don't work the same way. Other times packages are just tagged as non-working.
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