NixOS Crash Course

🎆 Happy New Year BSDG! 🥳

🔔 A quick reminder that the Boise Code Camp 2025 CFP is live! and if you have any interest in helping to organize or support this years event please fill out this form.

📖 We are about to kick off our inaugural read along in the BSDG book club (Thanks Joe!) - Designing Data-Intensive Applications, be sure to check out the #bookclub channel in discord or check out https://boise.systems for more info

📆 This month we welcome Phil, who wants to show us all the joys of declarative operating systems by introducing us to NixOS

Get a quick intro to NixOS, a unique Linux distro known for its declarative configuration and reproducibility. Phil covers who uses it, what makes it special, and some practical use cases. Then, he will demo installing packages, configuring GNOME with Home Manager, and even getting a 2014 MacBook Air’s camera working—all with a few lines of code.

Phil Daum is a software engineering apprentice at a nonprofit coding bootcamp, honing his skills in JavaScript, React, and Node.js. Before transitioning into tech full-time, he taught elementary school art, using Agile-inspired classroom management techniques (because even art projects need a Kanban board sometimes). Phil’s tech journey started as a side hustle, building WordPress sites for artists and small businesses while taking on occasional IT challenges. Now back in his home state of Idaho after years of wandering the West, he enjoys blending creativity with code and diving into new tech tools