Presenting

So you'd like to present Nix or NixOS to a group or organization?

Great, we have put together this page to help you get started!

We considered putting together a canned presentation, and maybe we still will but we think it's more compelling when an individual presents a message that they really own. Ideally, users will see your presentation and leave feeling excited to try NixOS.

Purpose

Begin by considering the purpose of your presentation:

Make it personal to you
Why do you want to give this presentation?
Why is giving the presentation important?

Compelling components

Think about how you want to communicate the value or benefits of Nix:

Telling a story
Use the following needs to features framework:

Situation that leads to a problem
Implications of that problem, pain points
How does Nix or NixOS take care of that problem

Live demos are exciting and compelling, but also risky, so be sure to practice and have contingency plans!

Bonus idea: fold these ideas together into a single cohesive whole.

What to focus on

When brainstorming your presentation, consider the following questions:

What's important about Nix to you?
What makes you excited about Nix?
What do you usually show others when showing them Nix?
When showing others Nix, what gets them excited?
What do they most like about Nix?

Answers to these questions could include:

Reproducible Builds
Managing Dependency Relationships
Fearlessly making changes
Constant time rollbacks
Configuring from a single canonical location
Being part of something big, early
Building skills in Nix
Learning basic semantics of system management on an as-needed basis

Live demos

The best live demos will be the unique ones you come up with yourself, but to get you started, we have a basic set of examples:

Vignettes in the Examples on nixos.org.