Comment by zombiezen
Nix sandboxes derivation runs on Linux even without flakes, and I'm planning on implementing that, yes: https://github.com/256lights/zb/issues/29 and https://github.com/256lights/zb/issues/31
MinGW is used to build Lua using cgo. I'd like to remove that part, see https://github.com/256lights/zb/issues/28 I haven't started the userspace for Windows yet (https://github.com/256lights/zb/issues/6), but I suspect that it will be more "download the Visual C++ compiler binary from this URL" than the Linux source bootstrap.
Yeah, I'm happy with live-bootstrap, too! I tried emulating Guix's bootstrap, but it depended a little too much on Scheme for me to use as-is. live-bootstrap has mostly worked out-of-the-box, which was a great validation test for this approach.
Thanks for answering and I really hope it works out. A Nix alternative with less friction would be very welcome!