this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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It's really not. It has no runtime for starters; it's a pure expression language. It can't i.e. read stdin, open a socket or do an arbitrary syscall.
The end result is always data. You could and can turn every sensible evaluation of Nix into JSON.
There are indeed side-effects but they're indirect; implied by the data that is the actual end result of an evaluation of Nix expressions. If your expression evals to a derivation (data), Nix will create a .drv file for you for example. They're well defined and not arbitrary though.