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am I on nixos-unstable? (sh.itjust.works)

new to nixos. I have found a flake.nix file on the internet which I used to build my system. in that flake file I found the following line:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    antigravity-nix = {
      url = "github:jacopone/antigravity-nix";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, antigravity-nix, ... }: {
    nixosConfigurations.your-hostname = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      modules = [
	./configuration.nix
	./hardware-configuration.nix
        {
          environment.systemPackages = [
            antigravity-nix.packages.x86_64-linux.default # Base App
            antigravity-nix.packages.x86_64-linux.google-antigravity-ide # IDE
            antigravity-nix.packages.x86_64-linux.google-antigravity-cli # CLI
          ];
        }
      ];
    };
  };
}

if I understood correctly the flake also has outputs variable in the attribute set and it's returning nixpkgs whose url is set to the unstable. does it mean I am running unstable version of nixos?

Thanks in advance!

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[-] libewa@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

Nevertheless, you regularly should run nix flake update --commit-lock-file in your configuration directory (by default, /etc/nixos), and then rebuild, as flakes never auto-update. Think of these commands as apt update and apt full-upgrade. The stable vs unstable channel only differ in when major updates are released. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with running unstable, at least on a desktop, and I even use it on my server. You shouldn't see it as unstable as on Debian, but as rolling, like Debian testing, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, or Arch.

[-] rozodru@piefed.world 1 points 1 day ago

Also keep in mind you don't need to run the flake update often. I'm on unstable and I run it like once a month. it's not like say Arch sudo pacman -Syu where you could literally run that every day if you wanted. I mean sure you COULD run the flake update everyday but if you want to do that you might as well just use Gentoo.

[-] libewa@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

I do it once a week, and if something breaks (which does sometimes happen), I roll back and retry after a few days, maybe file a ticket.

this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2026
13 points (100.0% liked)

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