I would have never become a power user of Linux were I used LLM to do the installation of Gentoo once upon a time. :( So do you guys not know much about the distro you are using, or how does this work? I honestly thought your comment was sarcasm, but apparently it is not.

▲ TheAceOfHearts 26 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Well, there's layers. When I started using nixOS I read through the guide and wiki but I also used LLM assistance to help create a stable starting point. Then over time I've incrementally added new things to my configuration through a mix of LLM assistance and reading online material.

I think the initial migration towards nixOS is the hardest point, since it requires learning a bunch of new things all at once in order to get the system into a usable state that matches your expectations and preferences. The key benefit of using an LLM is that it makes it really easy to get your system into a useful initial state, and then you can safely learn and experiment incrementally with a mix of tools.

When I started off I didn't understand everything, but at this point I feel I have a very good understanding of everything in my configuration file.

▲ hombre_fatal 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

NixOS is high-level declarative, so you're reading high-level config diffs when the AI agent is pitching changes.

Unless you're brand new to Linux or computing, it's not a mystery what a given nix config change is ever doing.

You can probably guess what this does:

    networking.firewall.allowedTCPPorts = [ 8080, 9000 ];

The things to know about the OS are high level things. The rest of its idiosyncrasies you learn just in time through daily exposure like anything else.

▲

shevy-java 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Unless you're brand new to Linux or computing, it's not a mystery what a given nix config change is ever doing.

I am not brand new - and I don't know what the heck the config is doing.

That is why I rely on documentation.

The "code is self-explanatory" is always an attempt to not have useful documentation and try to rationalise that problem away.

	▲	hombre_fatal an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Nothing about this changes with Nix nor AI agents. You can read documentation on an as-needed basis or to your heart's content. The point is that the majority of the day to day changes I make to my desktop environment aren't so critical that I need to do more than read an AI agent's proposed changes to my config and accept them when they look reasonable. And I don't think looking up the exact config options to NixOS' networking system does anything to increase my knowledge of the OS. It's just a triviality.