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Diffstat (limited to 'articles')
| -rw-r--r-- | articles/2018-06-23_nixos_gpu_assorted_topics.md | 8 |
1 files changed, 4 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/articles/2018-06-23_nixos_gpu_assorted_topics.md b/articles/2018-06-23_nixos_gpu_assorted_topics.md index b7b2606..6e34935 100644 --- a/articles/2018-06-23_nixos_gpu_assorted_topics.md +++ b/articles/2018-06-23_nixos_gpu_assorted_topics.md @@ -2,9 +2,9 @@ So I recently acquired a reasonably priced second-hand CAD workstation computer featuring a Xeon CPU, plenty of RAM as well as a nice Nvidia K2200 GPU with 4 GiB of memory and 640 cores as the heart of the matter. The plan was that this would enable me to realize my long hedged plans of diving into GPU programming - specifically using compute shaders to implement mathematical simulation type stuff. True to my [previously described](/article/tinkering_with_meta_tools) inclination to procrastinate interesting projects by delving into other interesting topics my first step to realizing this plan was of course acquainting myself with a new Linux distribution: [NixOS](https://nixos.org). -So after weeks of configuring I am now in the position of working inside a fully reproducible environment declaratively described by a set of version controlled textfiles[^0]. The main benefit of this is that my project-specific development environments are now easily portable and consistent between all my machines: Spending the morning working on something using the workstation and continuing said work on the laptop between lectures in the afternoon is as easy as syncing the Nix environments. This is in turn easily achieved by including the corresponding `shell.nix` files in the project's repository. +After weeks of configuring I am now in the position of working inside a fully reproducible environment declaratively described by a set of version controlled textfiles[^0]. The main benefit of this is that my project-specific development environments are now easily portable and consistent between all my machines: Spending the morning working on something using the workstation and continuing said work on the laptop between lectures in the afternoon is as easy as syncing the Nix environments. This is in turn easily achieved by including the corresponding `shell.nix` files in the project's repository. -As an example this is the environment I use to generate this very website, declaratively described in the Nix language: +Consider for example the environment I use to generate this very website, declaratively described in the Nix language: ```haskell with import <nixpkgs> {}; @@ -58,9 +58,9 @@ It can not be overstated how powerful the system management paradigm implemented Note that the `nix-shell` based example presented above is only a small subset of what NixOS offers. Besides shell environments the whole system configuration consisting of systemd services, the networking setup, my user GUI environment and so on is also configured in the Nix language. i.e. the whole system from top to bottom is declaratively described in a consistent fashion. -NixOS is the first destribution I am truly excited for since my initial stint of distro-hopping when I first got into Linux a decade ago. Its declarative package manager and configuration model is true innovation and one of those rare things where you already know that you will never go back to the old way of doing things after barely catching a climpse of it. Sure, other distros can be nice and I greatly enjoyed my nights of compiling Gentoo as well as years spent tinkering with my ArchLinux systems but NixOS offers something truely distinct and incredibly useful. At first I thought about using the Nix and Scheme based [GuixSD](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/) distribution instead but I got used to the Nix language quickly and do not think that the switch to Guile Scheme as the configuration language adds enough to offset having to deal with GNU's free software fundamentalism[^5]. +NixOS is the first destribution I am truly excited for since my initial stint of distro-hopping when I first got into Linux a decade ago. Its declarative package manager and configuration model is true innovation and one of those rare things where you already know that you will never go back to the old way of doing things after barely catching a climpse of it. Sure, other distros can be nice and I greatly enjoyed my nights of compiling Gentoo as well as years spent tinkering with my ArchLinux systems but NixOS offers something truly distinct and incredibly useful. At first I thought about using the Nix and Scheme based [GuixSD](https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/) distribution instead but I got used to the Nix language quickly and do not think that the switch to Guile Scheme as the configuration language adds enough to offset having to deal with GNU's free software fundamentalism[^5]. -Of course I was not satisfied merely porting my workflows onto a new superior distribution but also had to switch from [i3](https://i3wm.org/) to [XMonad](https://xmonad.org/) in the same breath. By streamlining my tiling window setup on top of this Haskell-based window manager my setup has reached a new level of minimalism. Layouts are now restricted to either fullscreen, tabbed or simple side by side tiling and everything is controlled using [Rofi](https://github.com/DaveDavenport/rofi) instances and keybindings. My constant need of checking battery level, fan speed and system performance was fixed by removing all bars and showing only minimally styled windows. And due to the reproducibility[^6] of NixOS the interested reader can check out the full system herself if he so desires ! :-) See the [home-manager](https://github.com/rycee/home-manager/) based user [environment](https://github.com/KnairdA/nixos_home) or specifically the [XMonad config](https://github.com/KnairdA/nixos_home/blob/master/gui/conf/xmonad.hs) for further details. +Of course I was not satisfied merely porting my workflows onto a new superior distribution but also had to switch from [i3](https://i3wm.org/) to [XMonad](https://xmonad.org/) in the same breath. By streamlining my tiling window setup on top of this Haskell-based window manager my setup has reached a new level of minimalism. Layouts are now restricted to either fullscreen, tabbed or simple side by side tiling and everything is controlled using [Rofi](https://github.com/DaveDavenport/rofi) instances and keybindings. My constant need of checking battery level, fan speed and system performance was fixed by removing all bars and showing only minimally styled windows. And due to the reproducibility[^6] of NixOS the interested reader can check out the full system herself if he so desires! :-) See the [home-manager](https://github.com/rycee/home-manager/) based user [environment](https://github.com/KnairdA/nixos_home) or specifically the [XMonad config](https://github.com/KnairdA/nixos_home/blob/master/gui/conf/xmonad.hs) for further details. After getting settled in this new working environment I finally was out of distractions and moved on to my original wish of familiarizing myself with delegating non-graphical work to the GPU. The first presentable result of this undertaking is my minimalistic [fieldplay](https://anvaka.github.io/fieldplay/) clone [computicle](https://github.com/KnairdA/computicle). |