--- title: It's not about “Flakes vs. Channels” — Samuel Dionne-Riel description: The post discusses the different meanings of the term 'channels' in the NixOS ecosystem and clarifies that not using 'Flakes' is not the same as using... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/it-s-not-about-flakes-vs-channels-samuel-dionne-riel-8btcbrsyd twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: It's not about “Flakes vs. Channels” — Samuel Dionne-Riel | daily.dev og:description: The post discusses the different meanings of the term 'channels' in the NixOS ecosystem and clarifies that not using 'Flakes' is not the same as using... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/it-s-not-about-flakes-vs-channels-samuel-dionne-riel-8btcbrsyd og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/8btcbrSyD.png og:image:alt: It's not about “Flakes vs. Channels” — Samuel Dionne-Riel og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # It's not about “Flakes vs. Channels” — Samuel Dionne-Riel **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The post discusses the different meanings of the term 'channels' in the NixOS ecosystem and clarifies that not using 'Flakes' is not the same as using 'channels'. It explains the various aspects of channels, including their organizational and conceptual definitions, the 'channel:...' syntax, Hydra channels (deprecated), the 'NIX_PATH' environment variable, and the 'nix-channel' command. It also mentions other ways to manage inputs, such as using 'fetchTarball' and 'npins'. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#nixos](https://daily.dev/tags/nixos) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/it-s-not-about-flakes-vs-channels-samuel-dionne-riel-8btcbrsyd) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"It's not about “Flakes vs. Channels” — Samuel Dionne-Riel","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/it-s-not-about-flakes-vs-channels-samuel-dionne-riel-8btcbrsyd","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/it-s-not-about-flakes-vs-channels-samuel-dionne-riel-8btcbrsyd"},"datePublished":"2024-05-08T23:52:11.576Z","dateModified":"2024-08-22T02:12:56.459Z","description":"The post discusses the different meanings of the term 'channels' in the NixOS ecosystem and clarifies that not using 'Flakes' is not the same as using...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--58gMhC4P--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2012","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--58gMhC4P--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2012","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Lobsters","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Lobsters","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--tl8v_Fku--/f_auto,t_logo/v1698841318/logos/lobste.jpg","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/it-s-not-about-flakes-vs-channels-samuel-dionne-riel-8btcbrsyd","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"nixos","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lobsters","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"It's not about “Flakes vs. Channels” — Samuel Dionne-Riel"}]} ```