Linux

48207 readers

771 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

103

Nix/Silverblue users: How big is the advantage if you already have 100% automated your deployments via Ansible? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

There is a similar question on the site which must not be named.

My question still has a little different spin:

It seems to me that one of the biggest selling points of Nix is basically infrastructure as code. (Of course being immutable etc. is nice by itself.)

I wonder now, how big the delta is for people like me: All my desktops/servers are based on Debian stable with heavy customization, but 100% automated via Ansible. It seems to me, that a lot of the vocal Nix user (fans) switched from a pet desktop and discover IaC via Nix, and that they are in the end raving about IaC (which Nix might or might not be a good vehicle for).

When I gave Silverblue a try, I totally loved it, but then to configure it for my needs, I basically would have needed to configure the host system, some containers and overlays to replicate my Debian setup, so for me it seemed like too much effort to arrive nearly at where I started. (And of course I can use distrobox/podman and have containerized environments on Debian w/o trouble.)

Am I missing something?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I appreciate this is more asking about nicks, but I’ll offer some feedback on my experience with immutable distributions more generally.

I took an adventure into silver blue and micro OS recently and I was completely unimpressed. It’s a novel idea from a good place, but it was the most incoherent and buggy experience I’ve ever had on Linux distribution in the past 10 years. Nothing walked reliably, and everything broke, I also found that trying to use anything other than the default gnome desktop was an exercise in futility.

I need to clarify, I think it’s a great idea. In practice though, Both implementations, silver blue and micro OS, are really over engineered.

I have adapted the ideas into my current install and I achieve the same thing with A/B Snapshots And a script that takes me from a base snapshot to my daily driver. Everything else exists in containers So bootstrapping up only involves half a dozen packages (iwd, node, nvim etc. ).