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

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

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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?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

it’s the only original distribution that even tries to tackle it instead of just working around it.

Well, apart of GUIX of course ;)

It's sort of a conceptual fork of Nix but the actual implementation is all original.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I thought so too but learned recently that Guix system is nix under the hood, basically translates everything, so it's more than a conceptual fork though obviously some more work went into it than your average Ubuntu fork.

It uses low-level mechanisms from the Nix package manager, but packages are defined as native Guile modules, using extensions to the Scheme language—which makes it nicely hackable.

https://guix.gnu.org/en/about/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

They used to use the nix-daemon to realise derivations but that too was replaced original software at some point I believe. Everything else has been guix own tooling for a long time.

They still use the same derivation file format (.drv) and the basic concepts are the same ("conceptual fork"), so you could theoretically be able to realise a derivation produced by guix using nix-daemon/nix-store but that's about it as far as similarities go.

If you don't believe me, go take a look at the source code. I promise you won't find a single line of C++ in it, only a ton of parenthesis ;))))