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I'm a huge fan of Arch Linux and would say that it is the best for personal use. However I wouldn't dream of running on a fleet of several. I currently have 6

I'm a huge fan of Arch Linux and would say that it is the best for personal use. However I wouldn't dream of running on a fleet of several. I currently have 6 nspawn containers I run, and it's not as consistent to ensure an update won't break it. Debian is great if you are running many servers. It's slow moving rate is due to care of not breaking the world.

nextos 6y ago
I like Debian as a community, but I think it would benefit from decentralization to speed up development. The community is great, but current package management techniques and processes are the equivalent of SVN, with modern approaches like Nix or Guix being the equivalent to Git. In Debian, the whole tree of packages has to be in sync. That works well for Arch, as it is a rolling release, but IMHO that slows down Debian as it doesn't use their manpower efficiently. Longtime ago, when Nix was not popular, there was a discussion in debian-devel about adopting Nix. It was probably premature. This discussion has resurfaced a number of times. I think currently they would benefit enormously from Nix or rolling out their own tooling that implemented equivalent ideas. With such a big community and large package set, packages should be able to be decoupled from each other so that they can depend on different library versions and move at their own pace. Also, Nix-like tooling would allow to automate and test most package updates when upstream changes, or find common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) automatically. Currently, there's a lot of manual intervention needed to do this. This would also be advantageous for end users, as they could mix and match packages from different channels. PPAs are an inferior solution.
- jancsika 6y ago
  These are great points. You might consider bringing it up with Debian developers again. Despite some of the difficulties the author mentioned in the article, Debian has successfully spearheaded some ambitious project-wide initiatives, like reproducible builds. So I don't think it's out of the question that they could vastly improve the packaging experience for both users and developers with something like Nix or Guix. Of course the biggest question is: how does one get there from here? For example-- can the Nix packaging approach coexist and play nice with the current Debian packaging system for years to come?
  - nextos 6y ago
    > can the Nix packaging approach coexist and play nice with the current Debian packaging system for years to come? Yes, Nix or an equivalent implementation like Guix stores all packages in a separate tree (e.g. /nix). In fact, Nix can be used outside NixOS. It's in fact quite popular in some distros and macOS. Hence, rolling out Nix or an equivalent tool can be done smoothly. Both can co-exist nicely.
    - jancsika 6y ago
      It really sounds quite workable as a solution, then. IIUC anyone in Debian could start work on this at any time, with really no disruption of the current system. Of course the devil is in the details-- graphics drivers, bootstrapping, etc.

nextos 6y ago

I like Debian as a community, but I think it would benefit from decentralization to speed up development. The community is great, but current package management techniques and processes are the equivalent of SVN, with modern approaches like Nix or Guix being the equivalent to Git. In Debian, the whole tree of packages has to be in sync. That works well for Arch, as it is a rolling release, but IMHO that slows down Debian as it doesn't use their manpower efficiently. Longtime ago, when Nix was not popular, there was a discussion in debian-devel about adopting Nix. It was probably premature. This discussion has resurfaced a number of times. I think currently they would benefit enormously from Nix or rolling out their own tooling that implemented equivalent ideas. With such a big community and large package set, packages should be able to be decoupled from each other so that they can depend on different library versions and move at their own pace. Also, Nix-like tooling would allow to automate and test most package updates when upstream changes, or find common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) automatically. Currently, there's a lot of manual intervention needed to do this. This would also be advantageous for end users, as they could mix and match packages from different channels. PPAs are an inferior solution.

jancsika 6y ago
These are great points. You might consider bringing it up with Debian developers again. Despite some of the difficulties the author mentioned in the article, Debian has successfully spearheaded some ambitious project-wide initiatives, like reproducible builds. So I don't think it's out of the question that they could vastly improve the packaging experience for both users and developers with something like Nix or Guix. Of course the biggest question is: how does one get there from here? For example-- can the Nix packaging approach coexist and play nice with the current Debian packaging system for years to come?
- nextos 6y ago
  > can the Nix packaging approach coexist and play nice with the current Debian packaging system for years to come? Yes, Nix or an equivalent implementation like Guix stores all packages in a separate tree (e.g. /nix). In fact, Nix can be used outside NixOS. It's in fact quite popular in some distros and macOS. Hence, rolling out Nix or an equivalent tool can be done smoothly. Both can co-exist nicely.
  - jancsika 6y ago
    It really sounds quite workable as a solution, then. IIUC anyone in Debian could start work on this at any time, with really no disruption of the current system. Of course the devil is in the details-- graphics drivers, bootstrapping, etc.