Top all-time · #1377
Determinate Systems
Company blog · determinate.systems/postsprogrammingsystems
Determinate Systems is the company blog at determinate.systems, writing about programming and systems. Since 2021, 50 different Hacker News readers have linked it 132 times, most often “Using Nix to run software with no installation steps”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 2 of 32 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Determinate Systems posts as Nix guides: installer instructions, flakes stability, and macOS upgrade fixes. Commenters use them as references when explaining Nix setup to others.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 32 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The secure software supply chain for critical infrastructure.
Most-linked posts?
- /5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-08-22
- Using Nix to run software with no installation steps4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-10-07
- The Determinate Nix Installer4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-02-27
- Streamline your GitHub Actions dependencies using Nix3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-10-31
- Moving Stuff Around with Nix3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-03-23
- Nix Language, Courtesy of WebAssembly3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-03-05
- Show HN: Install Nix on Your Steam Deck3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-12-21
- Parallel Nix Evaluation3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-06-27
- The Nix Flake Checker, a new tool for keeping your Nixpkgs inputs up to date3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-06-20
- Dropping Upstream Nix from Determinate Nix Installer3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-09-10
What Hacker News says?
The installer does it all for you. Theres even graphical installer https://determinate.systems/posts/graphical-nix-installer/
Comment linking /posts/graphical-nix-installer/
on “Our audit of Homebrew”Submitted We want to make Nix better as a story · 223 points
HN discussionIn my last role as a director of engineering at a startup, I found that a project `flake.nix` file (coupled with simply asking people to use https://determinate.systems/posts/determinate-nix-installer/ to install Nix) led to the fastest "new-hire-to-able-to-contribute" time of anything I've seen. Unfortunately, after a few hires (hand-picked by me), this is what happened: 1) People didn't want to learn Nix, neither…
Comment linking /posts/determinate-nix-installer/
on “We're Leaving Kubernetes”Submitted Riff, automatically provide external dependencies for Rust projects as a story · 96 points
HN discussionDeterminate Systems, Full time remote with overlap on New York TZ See: https://determinate.systems/ Determinate Systems is the Nix company, where cutting-edge technology meets unmatched expertise in Nix and flakes. We create the finest software development toolkit designed specifically for organizations that have embraced Nix and flakes. Our solutions are tailor-made for organizations prioritizing security and compl…
Comment linking /careers/frontend-engineer
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2024)”Submitted Changelog: Lazy trees (faster Nix builds) as a story · 68 points
HN discussionI believe so, it seems like almost all (or all?) solutions listed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39696038 use flakes underneath. I think the flakes problem come from two things: - flakes are labelled experimental for years now (I think it might be almost 5 years now) which creates confusion with new users, but they are universally used nearly everywhere now - there seems to be some bad blood[1] between h…
Comment linking /
on “Show HN: Flox 1.0 – Open-source dev env as code with Nix”Submitted Show HN: FlakeHub Cache: Fast, secure, configurable. A new take on Nix caching as a story · 65 points
HN discussion"Experimental does not mean unstable" (2023) https://determinate.systems/blog/experimental-does-not-mean-... I know not everyone is a fan of DS, but this post has a nice, concise explanation of how to think about the state of flakes.
Comment linking /blog/experimental-does-not-mean-unstable/
on “NixOS is making me less afraid”Submitted On Community in Nix as a story · 54 points
HN discussionThis is awesome, thanks for sharing so much detail. Btw one thing I noticed, the link to "Determinate Systems" was broken. I think this is the correct link: https://determinate.systems/posts/qemu-fix
Comment linking /posts/qemu-fix
on “Digging into a QEMU problem of slow data copying”Submitted The future of software is Nix as a story · 42 points
HN discussionI suggest the post author and you look into nu as the package build language. It's uniquely suited for this task, being a cross-platform shell[1] with real programming language features, data types, and using built-in uutils instead of relying on platform-dependent coreutils. It also limits mutability[2], favoring a more functional than imperative approach, which would at least theoretically help with reproducibilit…
Comment linking /posts/nuenv/
on “Show HN: Brioche – A new Nix-like package manager”Submitted Improved evaluation times with pre-resolved Nix store paths as a story · 41 points
HN discussionYeah, and that's obviously pretty hostile when the best guide is reading the source. I think the deeper problem that maybe isn't always considered in the "Nix needs better docs" discourse is that there are many tasks that simply don't have an optimal workflow in Nix (yet) . It can be weird documenting how do some particular thing, but having to frontload that doc with a bunch of caveats about which particular set of…
Comment linking /
on “How I like to install NixOS (declaratively)”Submitted Nix at work: FlakeHub Cache and private flakes as a story · 34 points
HN discussionFor context, Determinate is a startup made of the Nix guy and some of the senior community members. They explicitly support the Steam Deck (and used it as a test case to create their installer). https://determinate.systems/posts/nix-on-the-steam-deck/
Comment linking /posts/nix-on-the-steam-deck/
on “Persistent packages on Steam Deck using Nix”Submitted Make your QEMU 10 times faster with this one weird trick as a story · 25 points
HN discussionfor future reference you should really consider installing it with the determinate nix installer [0] instead. it's multi-platform and among other things creates an install receipt so that changes can be painlessly reverted. [0] https://determinate.systems/nix-installer/
Comment linking /nix-installer/
on “I Used Arch, BTW: macOS, Day 1”Submitted Determinate Nix 3.5: introducing lazy trees as a story · 18 points
HN discussionThe flakes were the main UX/DX improvement for me. Before them I honestly could not do anything. The learning curve was so incredibly steep it almost felt like the people behind Nix were being malicious or intentionally gatekeeping. You finally stumble onto something you can at least partly understand, but then the powers that be throw two last obstacles at you like, First, flakes are "experimental", so you have to…
Comment linking /blog/changelog-determinate-nix-331/
on “Nixtml: Static website and blog generator written in Nix”Submitted The Magic Nix Cache, a GitHub Action for speeding up your Nix workflows as a story · 11 points
HN discussionThis is a way improved[1] version of the official installer, capable of uninstallation among other things, there is no need to use the official one: https://determinate.systems/posts/determinate-nix-installer 1: https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer?tab=read...
Comment linking /posts/determinate-nix-installer
on “A new Debian package helper: debputy”Submitted The Determinate Nix Installer as a story · 9 points
HN discussionOh i've been using Nix on mac for quite a while. Not sure about the uninstall, but recently i did a fresh macbook install and used the Determinate Systems Nix Installer[1]. I haven't tried uninstalling, but installation was a joy by comparison to the traditional way (and poor documentation). [1]: https://determinate.systems/posts/determinate-nix-installer/
Comment linking /posts/determinate-nix-installer/
on ““Something has gone seriously wrong,” dual-boot systems warn after MS update”Submitted Parallel Nix Evaluation as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI'd love to find out how it compares! We're not quite ready to support CircleCI, but when we are -- want to do a test? You could hop on to our discord: https://determinate.systems/discord
Comment linking /discord
on “Show HN: FlakeHub Cache: Fast, secure, configurable. A new take on Nix caching”Submitted Determinate Nix 3.0 featuring stable flakes as a story · 6 points
HN discussion> Wow, what can a Mac auto-update do that is worse than Windows blocking your screen for 10 minutes Rename random internal user accounts without informing the user, breaking many third-party package managers with an overnight upgrade? https://determinate.systems/posts/nix-support-for-macos-sequ... Oh, or it could depreciate an entire class of software you may-or-may-not use without any opportunity for replacement be…
Comment linking /posts/nix-support-for-macos-sequoia/
on “Linux market share approaching 4.5% for first time, could hit 5% by 1Q25”Submitted Show HN: Determinate Nix as a story · 6 points
HN discussion
