NixOS solved the operating system. It did not solve what the operating system runs on. If you use NixOS, you know the feeling: your machines are described completely in code, rebuildable from scratch, rollback-able in one command. Then you look one layer down — at the hypervisor hosting those machines, the private network connecting them, the server holding their backups — and none of it is described anywhere. It was configured by clicking, and the only record is what you remember. ...
My NixOS Journey: From Arch Linux and FreeBSD to Declarative Configuration
I ran Arch Linux for years because I wanted current packages, and FreeBSD alongside it because I wanted a system that stayed put. Both worked. Neither answered the question that kept costing me weekends: when a machine breaks, how do I get the exact same machine back? On Arch, the honest answer was a wiki page of my own notes and some muscle memory. On FreeBSD it was a tarball of /etc and more muscle memory. Both are reconstruction from evidence, not reproduction from a source. ...