Hi, so I just installed NixOS using an old nixos-unstable iso (but was still based on 23.11) and I was playing around with the channels and found out that “nixos-unstable-small” gets updated more frequently and apparently gets later versions. Yesterday I updated my system and saw messages about derivations getting built with the system version 24.05, and after the system update, I checked the “About system” in my plasma desktop and saw NixOS 24.05 and then I checked the ISOs in both the “nixos-unstable” and “nixos-unstable-small” channels and saw that while the ISO on the unstable channel was still on 23.11, the “small” channel got the 24.05 ISOs already. And then just this time, I thought “Hey, what could be the codename for this version?” it was not written on the about system page on my plasma settings and couldn’t find anything on the internet so I thought “Maybe lsb-release could work” and it did. I just found out that NixOS 24.05 is codenamed “Uakari” and just thought I would like to share.
I was following the matrix release-management channel where you could see how they got that name I think.
Speaking of channels, I just moved one of my machines to the 23.11 release because it’s actually newer than nixos-unstable right now. Wanted to finally give gnome 45 a try on NixOS. The binary cache seems to be already up to date, didn’t need to compile anything.
Is 23.11 out? I don’t see it on https://nixos.org/download
Not officially, but it just branched off a couple of days ago. Saw in one of the matrix channels that it should be on hydra and just gave it a try by changing my flake’s nixpkgs from
nixos-unstabletonixos-23.11.It worked.
Unstable will move along very shortly though, I was just impatient. In fact, I just checked and it already has.
23.11 will be released very soon as well.
The info is appreciated. :)
Well, I was more impatient. I’m on 24.05 :P
Jk. Although, It was just amazing that even Nix’s channels work nothing like I have ever used. I have been using NixOS for just 3 months now and every now and then I discover something astonishing about it.
So nix unstable small is the „real“ rolling release?
When I searched it up, it made sense that the small channel was more updated. It’s like the non-small channel is slightly less updated but the binaries are already built for you in the cache, wherein the small release, the packages are more updated but some of the packages are supposed to be built from source so updates might take a longer time. Correct me if I’m wrong though.
but for me it looks like that the unstable channel is not a “rolling” like because all packages are a little bit datet (mesa for example is 23.1.9). I think that the unstable channel is the upcomming release (23.11 in this case)
Great find! Appreciate you sharing your process. :)
Thanks :)