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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.

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How have you automated configuring your machines in terms of packages and dotfiles so it works cross-distro? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm looking for interesting tools to automate managing packaging and configuring everything automated.

And yeah I know about NixOS but I like to distro hop and experiment so I for now know these:

Ansible - automating many machines, using different package names as vars and package managers.
Bash - the most native and compatible scripting language that can be.
Chezmoi - for dotfiles.

For now that's it. I'm looking forward for your suggestions!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I use SaltStack to automate my servers. Just feels better than Ansible to me.
For my PC and laptop I don't do anything, I haven't hopped distribution since I started using Tumbleweed a few years ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I heard about Salt being better alternative than Ansible. Why? I see.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The clear cut of state data, pillar data and formulae feels more intuitive to me than Ansible's playbook organization.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For person using only Ansible I don't know what are you talking about. 😆

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

ansible claims to be lots of things it's not. It's supposed to be idempotent. It's not, you can execute arbitrary scripts. You don't need an agent on the machines.... but it might just decide to stop supporting your version of python one day. It's okayish for setting up some machines, but absolutely sucks for maintaining them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I agree.