34 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
34 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: Nix as an operating system
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date: 2024-11-27
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permalink: daily/2024/11/27/nix-as-an-operating-system
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tags:
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- software-development
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- linux
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- nix
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- nixos
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cta: ~
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snippet: |
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If you like the declarative approach to installing and configuring packages with Nix, you do the same with your entire operating system with NixOS.
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---
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Yesterday, [I showed some of the Nix programming language][0] and how to use it to perform tasks such as installing and configuring packages.
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I like this declarative approach as you know everything installed on your system and its configuration.
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[There are no random or leftover packages or configuration files][1].
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The Nix package manager can be installed on Linux or macOS, but you can also use Nix to configure your whole operating system in a declarative way thanks to NixOS.
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As well as installing and configuring packages, you can define your firmware version, boot loader, disk partitioning, user accounts and more.
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I used to do this type of automation with Ansible but switched to NixOS soon after trying Nix on another Linux distribution.
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If I need to work on a different laptop, like when mine recently died, I can apply the same configuration and get all the same programs and configurations as before.
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If you want to see my current NixOS setup, you can [see it on my GitHub][2].
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[0]: {{site.url}}/daily/2024/11/26/the-nix-language
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[1]: {{site.url}}/daily/2024/11/23/no-more-random-packages
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[2]: https://github.com/opdavies/dotfiles
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