This sort of thing makes me want to give GNU Guix or NixOS a try. Not sure which yet though. Last time I checked both, they were limited with regarding to disk encryption and partitioning and such. I came up with a possible solution for GNU Guix, but I never put it to a test.
Guix is a great solution to this problem. It's a shame that there aren't any distributions based on it (afaik) besides the official GNU one, which is not very practical outside of a VM due to their aversion to anything proprietary.
Fair enough, NixOS doesn't completely solve this either (other than the aforementioned possibility to reference other parts of the system config and some integrity checks). I was just wondering if that's an area where more static checks are possible.
That sounds pretty good though, thanks! Maybe I'll try out Guix System some day.
Have you played with NixOS or Guix at all? They attempt to solve this problem from the ground up for the entire OS. It obviously has trade offs, but IMO it is the best solution around today (other than Kubernetes, but that is an abstraction level higher).
Sounds pretty neat. I wonder if the same is achievable with Guix, which is based on Nix. Now I am gonna have to spend some of my precious free time noodling around the Guix docs!
Gobolinux sort of does this. The main difference is GoboLinux uses “version numbers” while Nix & Guix use hashes. It makes a lot of difference for more complicated stuff.
Yep, that's why I second to try GuixSD but for now GuixSD is really raw&limited compared to NixOS... And nix itself while in some case it's not much clear for most usage is clear enough...
a bit complicated at first sight but if you value your freedom and is a poweruser then it is the panacea, and you can do this on any linux or unices...
I've been meaning to try NixOS personally but I spend most of my time on a shared server, so it's not an option. Thanks for the suggestion though, I'll definitely try it sooner rather than later.
I hope you took no offense by my comment. I tried nixos and failed to get what I want from it then went back to archlinux. But I understand how it's full of ambiguity (that's why I got back into familiar territory)
Maybe I'll make an article about guixsd and you'll read:p
Yes, that's one of the reasons Guix attracts me as well.
By the way, it's interesting to note here that when it comes to directory structure POSIX is much less strict than FHS [0], which NixOS and Guix largely abandon.
NixOS is good, if you found not enough documentation, try Guix and may be GuixSD. It uses guile (scheme) and has fantastic documentation. [1]
Earlier Nix had additional NixOps but that too now is available with Guix deploy. I am waiting when I can run Guix within a lxd container, shepherd init still has some rough edges with LXD container init.
Both are great piece of software and a new take on building OS and distribution. They are ahead of their time might take another 4-5 years before they become more mainstream.
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