Linux

48144 readers

928 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
No misinformation
No NSFW content
No hate speech, bigotry, etc

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

101

Nix/Silverblue users: How big is the advantage if you already have 100% automated your deployments via Ansible? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Another aspect I like about Nix compared to what I understand from Ansible (which I used a bit but not much) is that your configuration describes your system without any hidden state. Yes, you only get your dependencies through full evaluation, but what I mean is this: Let's say you install something on a system, i.e. you add it to your list of packages, which you later remove. To my knowledge, Ansible won't remove the package if not explicitly asked. However, if you explicitly tell Ansible to not have it installed, what happens if that package is later introduced as a dependency?

Ansible will always operate on a stateful system, which is kind of the combination of what others have already mentioned – it's (EDIT: it being Nix) idempotent and there's no hidden state that will break something down the way.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Ansible works on tasks, and to your hypothetical there, if you have a task that calls the package manager to put a package in the state 'absent', but it is another package's dependency, it will have little to do with ansible, and just follow the package manager's behaviour. (Up to some details. Like for 'apt', ansible runs the command with '-y', which has a little different behaviour than just removing the interaction part and assuming yes). If the package manager removes the depending package, and your playbook has first a task that installs it, then a taks that removes the dependency, you will always get 'changed' on both tasks everytime you run the playbook, even if your playbook puts the machine in the same state as before.