The key point is that all such tweaks to the system is managed in a one configuration file. While installing Hyprland may be a one-liner, configuring it and all other services from a single entry point is incredibly liberating.
Reverting changes are guaranteed to not leave behind any cruft, and you don't have to remember what you changed to make X or Y work: it's all visible in the (usually version controlled) system configuration.
Got a new computer? Just copy the configuration and enjoy a bit-identical system in seconds. Have an LLM tweak it and see the changes in the form of git diffs.
Sure, you can do the same with Silverblue and writing Ansible for everything, but it's not free of side effects (unlike Nix).
While nix might be free of side effects, activating a nixos configuration isn't as free as you imply. As an example, nixos keeps state around regarding user id/username mappings, to avoid giving the same user id to different users across time. So a fresh install of nixos might leave services unable to read their data files, because the file might be owned by a different user id. And if you activate and enable incus, for instance, it will probably create a bridge device: the device will remain in place after you remove incus, which will have implications for how your network/firewall works that your configuration will depend on but will not enforce or be able to reproduce.
Not an argument against using NixOS - I think the bridge device issue could reasonably be regarded as a bug rather than a fundamental design issue, and the user id/username mapping is a totally reasonable design decision which can be taken into account by forcing the user id numbers anyway.
> As an example, nixos keeps state around regarding user id/username mappings, to avoid giving the same user id to different users across time. So a fresh install of nixos might leave services unable to read their data files, because the file might be owned by a different user id.
> And if you activate and enable incus, for instance, it will probably create a bridge device: the device will remain in place after you remove incus, which will have implications for how your network/firewall works that your configuration will depend on but will not enforce or be able to reproduce.
To be clear, I don't use neither. But you can get NixOS to be almost completely stateless (if this is something you care) with a few changes. The power is there, but it is disabled by default because it is not the pragmatic choice in most cases.
How would "bit-identical" or "free of side effects" make an actual difference in practice?
Rollback is already very easy with filesystem snapshots.
Configs are already tracked by etckeeper.
New laptop: either copy the whole drive or the package list and dotfiles. Also, how often do you have to get new laptops for this to be relevant ?
If anything, the POSIX passwd specification should be updated to include age instead of introducing yet another dependency on systemd for something that affects the entire ecosystem.
If you have to have age, then I agree /etc/passwd is the best place.
But that means a user's birth date will be public viewable, for some people that would be an issue. In my opinion. bdate should not be stored anywhere in Linux or any UNIX type system. Linux and the BSD should ignore these laws completely and we move on from this.
I still do no understand why the Linux Foundation is not chiming in. By keeping quiet all the LF is doing is reinforcing the perception that LF is fully owned by "Big Tech".
FreeDOS has no accounts. Neither hasn't Haiku, nor Amiga. And any OS from 8 and 16 microcomputers with FPGA's have no concept of that either and if they can run Frotz they can for sure play Interstatal Zero, (I-0.z5), both in English and a faithful Spanish translation (Interstatal Cero). Oh, you are now able to run a 18+ game even under a PSP, a PDA, an old phone with no concept of accounts at all (J2ME interpreter), classic Mac's, a Post Script file and even FreeDOS.
Go try implementing accounts under FreeDOS or CP/M.
Now potentially a 18+ game can be showed to billions of native (and non-native) English speakers from nearly any OS sice 1979, even under a PostScript file (zmachine.ps), albeit it needs to be extended.
This law it's idiotic and it shows. Will they ban retrocomputing with Amiga OS 3.1 running on FPGA's or what?
They can run the modern web with TLS 1.2/3 with AmiSSL. They can run IRC against Bitlbee and login into Steam, Jabber, Discord and Mastodon with relative ease. Gemini can access most JS-less webs at gemini://gemi.dev and Gopher clients for sure it might be some adult content referenced at gopher://magical.fish and gopher://sdf.org, even if it's just mildly NSFW, such as harsh language and sex references. The Javascript-less web, too. Usenet, more adult discussions and content, maybe with heated flame wars. And for sure they can run Frotz with that mentioned game game, at full speeds.
https://xkcd.com/297/
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