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I recently installed NixOS on my laptop after years of using Debian, and the main difference I noticed was that it's much easier to keep everything clean. For

I recently installed NixOS on my laptop after years of using Debian, and the main difference I noticed was that it's much easier to keep everything clean. For example with Debian I might do something like try to get my GPU to work by installing nouveau, try various configs, then uninstall nouveau and install the Nvidia proprietary drivers. But then when I finally got the GPU working, I'd worry. Are some of those config changes I tried for nouveau still affecting my system? Has all that mucking around left my GPU forever in a suboptimal state? With Nix, it might take just as much tinkering to get the GPU to work. But once I'm done, I know that my system is exactly as I've defined it in configuration.nix. Anything else I tried along the way will just sit inertly in /nix/store until the garbage collector wipes it away.

layer8 1y ago
I don’t know. My concept for reproducibility with Debian is a backup of /etc and the list of installed packages (the output of `dpkg --get-selections`). It’s also not difficult to diff one’s /etc with a pristine version, though I haven’t actually needed that in many years.
- OscarCunningham 1y ago
  I believe 'dpkg --get-selections' lists all packages, not just the ones the user installed. So if I installed some package foo that had a dependency bar, this method would have me carrying around bar even if foo updated to stop depending on it.
  - layer8 1y ago
    You are right. In that case, apt-clone is better, though not universally available.
- __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
  If that scratches the itch, great. Backups of /etc can't be combined in a way that lets you reliably uncombine them later though, so you're going to be limited in how modular you can make it.
  - layer8 1y ago
    That’s true, though using version control with branches and merges can get you pretty far.
pabs3 1y ago
The Debian cruft-ng package, plus package list diffs, can identify problematic state you have added to the system.

layer8 1y ago

I don’t know. My concept for reproducibility with Debian is a backup of /etc and the list of installed packages (the output of `dpkg --get-selections`). It’s also not difficult to diff one’s /etc with a pristine version, though I haven’t actually needed that in many years.

OscarCunningham 1y ago
I believe 'dpkg --get-selections' lists all packages, not just the ones the user installed. So if I installed some package foo that had a dependency bar, this method would have me carrying around bar even if foo updated to stop depending on it.
- layer8 1y ago
  You are right. In that case, apt-clone is better, though not universally available.
__MatrixMan__ 1y ago
If that scratches the itch, great. Backups of /etc can't be combined in a way that lets you reliably uncombine them later though, so you're going to be limited in how modular you can make it.
- layer8 1y ago
  That’s true, though using version control with branches and merges can get you pretty far.

pabs3 1y ago

The Debian cruft-ng package, plus package list diffs, can identify problematic state you have added to the system.