nixops VS nix

As far as I know, it’s still about [0]. I’ve had a better experience with deploy-rs though [1] - or even just using nixos-rebuild to target the remote machine.

[0] - https://github.com/NixOS/nixops

For example Nix can already replace ansible, packer, cloudformation[1], dockerfiles.

Nix can also ship the nixpkgs as an oci image (e.g. docker image), vm image, iso, or if you're able to: as a nixos configuration. Tools like nixops can allow you to deploy many machines and have their behavior exactly specified, and the configuration can be version controlled. NixOS configuration can be thought of as congruent configuration management, where many other tools give you many less guarantees about configuration drift and reproducibility.

There are 4 tools I'm taking into consideration right now, but every suggestion is welcome: 1. deploy-rs - I don't know anything about it, heard about it like a day or two ago 2. NixOps - the official one, I don't know what to think, but I have concerns about Flakes compatibility 3. morph - I understand this as "NixOps, but better", no more toughs. 4. colmena - seems to be pretty straightforward with quite nice docs

I'm still relatively new to NixOS, having switched all my personal systems over to it this spring/summer. I don't have a detailed answer to your question, but I believe NixOPs is the canonical way to do what you're describing in production/at scale:

https://github.com/NixOS/nixops

https://nixos.org/nixops/manual/

Nixops is specifically made for purposes like yours.

Well, everyone of course! But especially devops, developers, power-users, and ricer folks. Due to the declarative and purity aspect of nixpkgs, all builds and configurations can be version controlled, cached and shared. NixOS can easily be extended to produce docker images, vm images, or even distributed deployments. You can also write reproducible multi-node integration tests. Tinkerers! Love playing around with the latest desktop manager or modifying builds? Nixpkgs allows you to modify any package you wish to, locally! Nixpkgs is actually a source distribution but its guarantees around purity and reproducibility are so strong that you can get a binary cache "for free".

You could use NixOps[0] for Nix but I'm not sure you can directly compare Terraform and Guix/Nix? My set up involves Terraform for infrastructure and Nix for provisioning, and it's working for me so far.

[0] https://github.com/NixOS/nixops

I'll have to read more about NixOps though, I had kind of forgotten that it existed!

Kind of off topic, but I would love to have NixOps (https://github.com/NixOS/nixops) as an abstraction layer for every type of cloud service, and not just virtual machines (e.g. queues, object storages, etc).

There is Terraform and Ansible, of course, but Nix seems like it could combine the strengths of both of them.

> https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/9911#issuecomment-19252073...

As we covered in my last post, NixOS is a amazing Linux distribution for creating stable and declared environments. Now while this is amazing for a desktop setup, it is also perfect for a home-server or home-lab.

(Nix itself is slowly chugging along with Windows via MinGW - https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix-on-windows/1113/108 and https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/1320 , for example.)

Nix is a cross-platform package manager. It uses the nix programming language. Nix and NixOs are often used in the same context, but while the first is a package manager, the latter is a linux distribution based on nix.

Today I want to talk to you about Nixos. What is it? Nixos is a declarative and reproducible OS, partly taking the words used on their own page. What does that mean?

Software developers often want to customize:

1. their home environments: for packages (some reach for brew on MacOS) and configurations (dotfiles, and some reach for stow).

2. their development shells: for build dependencies (compilers, SDKs, libraries), tools (LSP, linters, formatters, debuggers), and services (runtime, database). Some reach for devcontainers here.

3. or even their operating systems: for development, for CI, for deployment, or for personal use.

Nix provision all of the above in the same language, with Nixpkgs, NixOS, home-manager, and devShells such as https://devenv.sh/. What's more, Nix is (https://nixos.org/):

- reproducible: what works on your dev machine also works in CI in prod,

- declarative: you version control and review your configurations and infrastructure as code, at a reasonable level of abstraction,

- reliable: all changes are atomic with easy roll back.

Hopping from one distro to another with a different package manager might require some time to adapt. Using a package manager that can be installed on most distro is one way to help you get to work faster. Flatpak is one of them; other alternative are Snap, Nix or Homebrew. Flatpak is a good starter, and if you have a bunch of free time, I suggest trying Nix.

- it reduces bloat, because you can generate an environment or OS image with only the software needed to run a specific program or service

My guess is that a big efficiency gain would come from the second point, because you don't waste CPU on code that you don't use.

Does this make sense? Has anyone explored this?

[0]: https://nixos.org

1) Setting up the development environment - I currently use devcontainers for most things, but may also dig into nix -> isolated, portable, repeatable development environment 2) Exploring Echo - understand routing, requests, response, etc. 3) Incorporate Templ - integration with Echo, template composition, etc. 4) Integrating TailwindCSS - config for use with Echo/Templ, development cycle, deployment, etc. 5) Add in HTMX - endpoints, template structure, concepts, etc. 6) hyperscript for interactivity - client side interactivity

"Your greatest challenge lies ahead -- and downwards..."

Oh, wait a second, my bad, that's the quote on the box cover for Zork I: (

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/Zork_I_box_ar...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork

)

What you really wanted was a link to where you could download Nix/NixOS -- and/or learn more about it!

Here ya go!

https://nixos.org/

"Your greatest challenge lies ahead -- and downwards..."

:-) :-)

I say all of the above in the spirit of humor -- and as a NixOS user and fan!

(But yes, there is a learning curve to it, so yes, learning Nix/NixOS could be a challenge!)

((But you're a bright person, you have Google and ChatGPT to assist you, and you like challenges!))