I made a dual-bootable NixBSD (NixOS and FreeBSD) image
I've been working on getting NixBSD (Nix package manager + FreeBSD) to boot alongside NixOS on a shared ZFS pool. The result is a <2GB disk image you can try in QEMU or virt-manager. What works: - GRUB chainloads FreeBSD's bootloader - Both systems share a ZFS pool - Everything is defined in a single Nix flake - Fully reproducible builds (some dependencies are now cached on Cachix) Planned: - Support native compilation of NixBSD (currently cross-compiled on Linux) - Many shortcuts were taken to get this working, needs lots of cleanup - Add a semi-automated installer like nixos-wizard Try it:…
I made a dual-bootable NixBSD (NixOS and FreeBSD) image launched on January 29, 2026 with 9 votes, #1,189 of 14,584 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches.
What it does
NixBSD bootable image. Contribute to jonhermansen/nixbsd-demo development by creating an account on GitHub.
A reproducible dual-boot system combining NixOS and NixBSD on a single ZFS pool, with GRUB chainloading the FreeBSD bootloader. # Using libvirt/virt-manager: # - Firmware: UEFI # - Disk bus: SATA # - Attach the .img file as a disk # Or with QEMU directly: qemu-system-x86_64 \ -enable-kvm \ -m 2048 \ -bios /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd \ -drive file=nixos.root.img,format=raw Default credentials: nixos / nixos (or root / toor ) nix build . # zfsImage # Result: ./result/nixos.root.img Dependencies are cached at jonhermansen.cachix.org . This is experimental software. NixBSD can only be cross-compiled from Linux at thisfrom github.com
In the maker’s words, at launch
I've been working on getting NixBSD (Nix package manager + FreeBSD) to boot alongside NixOS on a shared ZFS pool. The result is a <2GB disk image you can try in QEMU or virt-manager. What works: - GRUB chainloads FreeBSD's bootloader - Both systems share a ZFS pool - Everything is defined in a single Nix flake…
Does a similar job
all alternatives →
MyNixOS – Create and share Nix and NixOS configurations2022 · mynixos.com · ▲200Hello HN! I want to show you MyNixOS.com - a website I've been working on this year to make it easy to create and share Nix and NixOS configurations. Nix is a powerful tool to deploy software in a reproducible way, and with NixOS you can control your whole operating system through a declarative configuration. Starting out with Nix was exciting, but it definitely had a challenging learning curve. This made me start building a website focused on making it easier to create and share Nix flakes, which are the core unit of software deployment in Nix. Using the website, you can create flakes…
Nix Snapshotter – Native understanding of Nix packages for containerd2023 · github.com · ▲145Hello! This is Edgar and Robbie and we built nix-snapshotter. nix-snapshotter brings native understanding of Nix packages to containerd. We built this because Nix is a great fit for making efficient containers. They don't need an OS because Nix captures all dependencies exactly. However, the current process of creating Nix images is subpar because one needs to transform Nix packages into a format that container runtimes understand. Using nix-snapshotter, instead of downloading image layers, packages come directly from the Nix store. Packages can be fetched from a binary cache or built on the…
NixOS-DGX-Spark – Nix and NixOS on the DGX SparkAug 2026 · github.com · ▲132Try DGX Spark playbooks using Nix on DGX OS, or install NixOS on your DGX Spark for the full Nix experience. The repository provides USB images and a NixOS module with settings for DGX Spark systems. This works on the NVIDIA DGX Spark itself and also on the Asus Ascent GX10. See my 5 minute lightning talk from Planet Nix for an intro: https://youtu.be/AvK_gi_snJE?si=MPKv3iiuS9B5elIE
WarpBuild – x86-64 and arm GitHub Action runners for 30% faster builds2023 · warpbuild.com · ▲154Hey HN, I’m Surya and I’m excited to show you WarpBuild! WarpBuild provides fast, secure `x86-64` and `arm64` Github actions runners. This speeds up your workloads by 30%, at half the cost, and takes ~2mins to get started. We’ve been seeing pretty good results since we opened up signups a week ago and I’ve shared some numbers publicly here [1]. Currently, we support linux runners for Github organizations (not personal accounts) and MacOS support is coming soon (~Jan). The way the runners work is deceptively simple: Runners are assigned to hardware that is ideal for build workloads with fast…
go-nbd – A Pure Go NBD Server and Client2023 · github.com · ▲113Hey HN! I just released go-nbd, a lightweight Go library for effortlessly creating NBD servers and clients. Its a neat tool for creating custom Linux block devices with arbitrary backends, such as a file, byte slice or what I'm planning to use it for, a tape drive. While there are a few partially abandoned projects like this out there already, this library tries to be as maintainable as possible by only implementing the most recent handshake revision and baseline functionality for both the client and the server, while still having enough support to be useful. I'd love to get your feedback :)
- ZZZectl – ZFS Boot Environment Manager for Linux2020 · ramsdenj.com · ▲119
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Hey HN! I wanted to share something I built over the last few weeks: isometric.nyc is a massive isometric pixel art map of NYC, built with nano banana and coding agents. I didn't write a single line of code. Of course no-code doesn't mean no-engineering. This project took a lot more manual labor than I'd hoped! I wrote a deep dive on the workflow and some thoughts about the future of AI coding and creativity: http://cannoneyed.com/projects/isometric-nyc
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