this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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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.
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Just so it's clear for everybody: Nix is a programming language, build system, and package manager. NixOS is a Linux distro built with (and upon) Nix. Home Manager is a dotfile and home management tool using Nix, allowing control of dotfiles, but also per-user software, systemd services, and more. You can use Home Manager in any distro, not just NixOS (but you do need to install Nix).
Here's my example (Github mirror). It stores everything from my custom packages (like GIMP 2.99, which isn't yet packaged in nixpkgs, or a custom virtiofsd to workaround an upstream bug caused by switching from the old C to the new Rust implementation), to my fish, sway, rofi, mpv configs, to my entire server setup, including Gitea, Nextcloud, Keycloak, Mumble, mailserver and Matrix server with some bots and bridges (I recently migrated from an x86_64 to a arm64 board and the only post-install setup I had to do was copy /var), to my router's nftables rules.
I host it on an Arm SBC lying in the closet, specifically Radxa Rock 5A (well, the dotfiles mention that much). That said, you don't need your VPS service to offer NixOS provisioning, you can just use nixos-infect
I just use Git for my nixos config files.