Managing 30+ machines with NixOS in a single unified config, currently sitting at a total of around 17k lines of nix code.

In other words, I have put a lot of time into this. It was a very steep learning curve, but it’s paid for itself multiple times over by now.

For “newcomers”, my observations can be boiled down to this: if you only manage one machine, it’s not worth it. Maaaaaybe give home-manager a try and see if you like it.

Situation is probably different with things like Silverblue (IMO throwing those kinds of distros in with Guix and NixOS is a bit misleading - very different philosophy and user experience), but I can only talk about Nix here.

With Nix, the real benefit comes once you handle multiple machines. Identical or similar configurations get combined or parametrized. Config values set for Host A can be reused and decisions be made automatically based on it in Host B, for example:

• all hosts know my SSH pub keys from first boot, without ever having to configure anything in any of them
• my NAS IP is set once, all hosts requiring NAS access just reuse it implicitly
• creating new proxmox VMs just means adding, on average, 10 lines of nix config (saying: your ID will be this, you will run that service) and a single command, because the heavy lifting and configuring has already been done, once -…

Oh yeah rust tooling is insanely good ootb

I’m too lazy to insert the “look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power” meme here, so… Please imagine it instead.

I’m switching jobs in a couple of months, and I am SO glad to be leaving a (very well maintained!!) python codebase with type hints and mypy for a rust codebase.

It is just not the same.

At this point, package management is the main differentiating factor between distro (families). Personally, I’m vehemently opposed to erasing those differences.

The “just use flatpak!” crowd is kind of correct when we’re talking solely about Linux newcomers, but if you are at all comfortable with light troubleshooting if/when something breaks, each package manager has something unique und useful to offer. Pacman and the AUR a a good example, but personally, you can wring nixpkgs Fron my cold dead hands.

And so you will never get people to agree on one “standard” way of packaging, because doing your own thing is kind of the spirit of open source software.

But even more importantly, this should not matter to developers. It’s not really their job to package the software, for reasons including that it’s just not reasonable to expect them to cater to all package managers. Let distro maintainers take care of that.

Now if Eelco Doolstra wasn’t fucking around, we could have had a super LTS NixOS - but NOOOO.

My exact thoughts lol

Yep, this is the answer. Set it, forget it, accidentally have your hard drive destroyed irrecoverably, and re-set everything up to the exact working state you were used to in under 15min.

It’s a fair bit of initial setup and learning, but afterwards, the word “stable” takes on a new meaning.

Take a look at Kavita for selfhosting bools!

Yeah, +1.

I’ve been an avid fan of applocation launchers like rofi and dmenu on the desktop forever, and the “swipe down and immediately search” feels as close as it can get to the mobile equivalent of those.

Dang, oof

Might even be worth checking if https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware has a straight-up fix for the issue.

Generally I agree with everyone else, Linux Mint is great.

However, if you really want to not worry at all, you could just buy a laptop from e.g. Tuxedo or System76. They come with Linux preinstalled (I think in the case of Tuxedo at least, you even have a choice of which Linux Distro?), and are guaranteed to have no hardware “difficulties” with Linux, i.e. even if you put another distro on it, you won’t encounter driver issues.

(Those have become very rare anyways, but do put a damper on the “Firsttime Linux Experience” if you do encounter them…)

Generally I agree with everyone else, Linux Mint is great.

However, if you really want to not worry at all, you could just buy a laptop from e.g. Tuxedo or System76. They come with Linux preinstalled (I think in the case of Tuxedo at least, you even have a choice of which Linux Distro?), and are guaranteed to have no hardware “difficulties” with Linux, i.e. even if you put another distro on it, you won’t encounter driver issues.

(Those have become very rare anyways, but do put a damper on the “Firsttime Linux Experience” if you do encounter them…)

Dang that’s impressive

Or disappointing, Idk

Thanks! Yep, same thought about the version checks. I’ll spin up a VM for now and see if that allows for suitable experimentation, otherwise fingers crossed I don’t brick the device.

The web-server thing is probably safer, agreed, but packaging my own update is just so much more tempting… :D

Oh whoops I thought you were 0v0 🤦🏼‍♀️ Thanks anyways though :D

Hey, thanks, but that’s the A5x, a newer Android tablet. Different hard and software

Fantastic.

Since the zip also includes a bunch of shell scripts, I think it’s possible I could also just install ssh directly - but the image will certainly make experimenting in a VM the safer option until something works out… ^^

Oh man, I can’t wait to get home from work on Friday (currently stuck on the other side of the country 🫠)

Edit: also, can I somehow buy you a beer/coffee somewhere digitally?

No way!! You’re the goat. I spent the day trying to get behind how the cracking worked by making simple examples, and you just… Solve the puzzle :D

Awesoms, thank you so much!! I’ll appreciate update this thread if this leads to something :D

Theoretically… But this is 5 levels of knowledge above my head, I fear :D

I own the goddamn device, I should be able to do whatever I want with it…