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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)

Reading this, I find myself really, REALLY wanting to replicate that sort of setup, especially the docs part which is something I've been neglecting. I always say to myself, "The next Arch install, I'll document the setup" and it never happens!

[–] wolf 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

“The next Arch install, I’ll document the setup” - Famous last words! :-)

Seriously, I wonder how good my approach would work with a rolling distribution like Arch. I would be afraid, that pacman updates would drift/change the system and over time the delta to my assumed setup grows... OTOH if you keep your scripts in sync with Archs updates, you might simply distribute the maintenance of your Ansible script. If you go full Ansible with Arch, please give an experience report in 6 months!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I don't think I will. I switch between Arch and NixOS constantly, and this time (I'm on NixOS right now) I intend on remembering distrobox is a thing if I need to compile from source.