Seems like Nix is going the way of the dinosaur. Most packages are now multiple versions behind. No one seems to be maintaining the packages anymore.
You reckon? I'm on NixOS and it feels like we tend to get things ahead of a number of other distros - especially Debian- or Ubuntu-based ones.
Debian stable is an incredibly low bar in terms of new packages. I'm on NixOS, too, if that matters, and I don't have a strong opinion on how fresh packages are, although I do find it far from ideal in other areas ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh yeah I 100% agree, and IMO the lowness of that bar just strengthens my point. Even in the state that it's in, nobody would suggest that Debian or Ubuntu was dying (except this guy, I guess, since he did so above) - so saying that Nix, which is so much more up-to-date, is dying is laughable. I really like the graph posted a little further up in the thread, actually, I didn't realise that the difference was that massive!
Arch Linux does a better job mostly... although Nix does have more packages. Alpine Linux actually seems to do better than most in keeping packages updated.
Nix has the most unique packages and the most up to date packages of any Linux software repository. It has substantially more fresh packages than Arch or Alpine (which you say does a better job in a separate comment).
Source:https://repology.org/repositories/graphs
I can give you a list of software that is not being kept up to date on Nix Stable that is pretty popular. At first glance it does look impressive but does not translate into my real world experience.
Stable channels provide conservative updates for fixing bugs and security vulnerabilities, but do not receive major updates after initial release.
If you want up to date packages then use the unstable channel.
Do it yourself. Contributing to nixpkgs is easy, especially for updating packages.
Well there is this thing called DevOps where you scan repos and have packages get built and pushed automatically... not sure if you've ever heard of it. I think it is called CI/CD. /s
The nixpkgs community has been operating and maintaining nixpkgs-update since 2018. Earlier in the thread, you were shown the infamous Repology graph; it's also linked from the nixpkgs-update documentation. We already have a concerted plan to offer the freshest ports tree in the world and are executing on it. If your particular pet package isn't available, then contribute it yourself and the bot will ensure that it stays fresh and updated.
Lol.. pet package? You act like these packages I'm referring to are ones that no one is using. These are highly popular packages where winget is getting updates way before Nix. Flathub is doing a better job at keeping packages updated in some instances. Something must be broken with the tool you mention if you think it is keeping packages updated.
You claim you have a list of packages, but you've revealed none of them. This is somewhere between the angry politician waving a list of enemies and the dishonest teenager claiming to have a romantic partner in terms of convincing me. Look, you have the time to write something like fifty Lemmy comments per month; I think that you can write the twenty or thirty lines of Nix required to build your pet package. It's a shitty carpenter who blames their power tools and a shitty scientist who makes empirical claims without evidence.
You are confusing Nix with Debian.
Debian died a long time ago. It has its loyal users no doubt, but is a low bar to set.