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. ...