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   Mark Stosberg (markstos@urbanists.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jan-2025 00:50:17 JST Mark Stosberg

   The #Nix docs have a reputation for being not-great, and I got to experience that after reviewing the "Ad hoc Shell Environments" page and attempting to try some things there:

   https://nix.dev/tutorials/first-steps/ad-hoc-shell-environments

   ```
   ❯ nix-shell -p nodejs-20_x
   error: getting status of '/nix/var/nix/daemon-socket/socket': Permission denied
   ```

   Now, why would creating an env specific to my current user require access to a socket owned by another user?

   • Embed this notice
     Mark Stosberg (markstos@urbanists.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jan-2025 00:50:13 JST Mark Stosberg

     in reply to

     I manually resolved those directory issues with #nix, only to reveal a new category of error:

     ```
     error: file 'nixpkgs' was not found in the Nix search path (add it using $NIX_PATH or -I)
     ```

     Sorry, if trying Nix was supposed to a step towards using #NixOS, the out of the box experience has been poor for me on Arch Linux.

     Apparently this issue might be that first `nix-channel` needs to download something? That could have been done automatically or the diagnostic message could say that.

   • Embed this notice
     Mark Stosberg (markstos@urbanists.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jan-2025 00:50:14 JST Mark Stosberg

     in reply to

     So I created that directory and there's a new error:

     ```
     ❯ nix-shell -p nodejs-20_x
     error: creating directory '/nix/store/.links': Permission denied
     ```

     Created that directory, and there's another error:

     ```
     ❯ nix-shell -p nodejs-20_x
     error: creating directory '/nix/var/nix/temproots': Permission denied
     ```

     #Nix has an missed opportunity to here to check for these error states and produce a more useful diagnostic message than "permission denied".

     alcinnz repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Mark Stosberg (markstos@urbanists.social)'s status on Monday, 06-Jan-2025 00:50:16 JST Mark Stosberg

     in reply to

     I read somewhere that to solve this #Nix error I needed to add my current user to the `nix-users` group, which I did, but then I got another error:

     ```
     ❯ nix-shell -p nodejs-20_x
     error: creating directory '/nix/store': Permission denied
     ```

     Again, I'm not running the command as root or with `sudo`, so it's unclear why Nix insists on attempting to run as another user.

     `nix-shell` could also provide more useful error messages than "permission denied".

     Not a great first impression.