[Dedime]

I've used docker-compose, k8s, and NixOS myself, being from a similar technical background as the author, but I find myself disagreeing with some of the author's opinions on the technologies. They're not wrong of course, but I've had different experiences.

k8s: Installing and using k8s can indeed be a nightmare. In my job, we use Azure, so it's not so bad since launching a cluster is mostly handled by Azure. Setting it up for personal use is less fun. The mountains of YAML you can end up using to deploy even semi-complex services is even less fun. That being said, I've been wanting to use it for a personal project (distributed cluster using cloud VPSs and bare metal at home connected using WireGuard). I just wish it was smaller and faster. Most guides recommend 2Gb of RAM and 2 CPU for the smallest of small deployments.

docker-compose: I actually love docker-compose for my personal stuff. I have an intel NUC hosting homeassistant, pihole, caddy, deluge, jellyfin and a handful of other stuff. Everything lives in a series of folders for each service. Backups (both data and code via git), disaster recovery, and just general reasoning about of it is so easy. The docker-compose files are small and easy to read. I also find docker-compose to be about as immutable as you'd like it - version control your docker-compose directories, pin your image SHAs, and you're in a good place. Or don't, and it will still work pretty well.

NixOS: I've done it. I installed it on my Framework Laptop since it was all the rage at the t ime. I lived with it for about a year, and it was okay - for day-to-day use - AFTER I had spent weeks learning how to use NixOS. I will freely admit it's an awesome technology in some respects. But the documentation just was not there. It was way too hard to learn how to do even basic tasks. I thought nix flakes might be the "aha" moment I was looking for, but I gave up trying to get that to work after a couple of days of troubleshooting. Don't even get me started on trying to package up something from scratch. As a random example, I googled "packaging python for nix" and the top result [1] is just way too complex for something that should be pretty simple. The example includes some abomination of a .nix file with inline bash and python scripts.

I don't really know where I'm going with this. I really do like the idea of NixOS. I just wish it was much, much easier to reason about. Curious to hear what others make of this.

[1](https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Packaging/Python)

[aliasxneo]

Nix has a dedicated following among some of the DevOps members in my company. Luckily, it stays mostly segregated, but I had an interesting conversation with some of them the other day about how awful troubleshooting Nix is. Now, mind you, these are pretty OG Nix contributors, and the response was basically: you have to want it enough.

I had my own falling out with Nix/NixOS over a year ago. I guess I didn't want it enough shrug.

For clarity, I still use home-manager because it's fairly painless, but anything above that is pretty much a no-go for me.

[bkiran]

Troubleshooting Nix is mind-numbing. For some of the benefits, it's the price that is need to be paid

[bkiran]

Thanks for the perspective. I mainly use NixOS to run my server's not personal machines. I can see why it can be a frustrating experience for a machine that you just want to run personal stuff on.

In my instance of creating server machines(cattle), the configurations are pretty light and what's important is the reproducibility aspect of it. If I need to take one down and rebuild another it takes about 10 minutes. All the upfront work of configuring Nix for that one machine has paid off.

[sellmesoap]

I'm a big nixos fan myself, and I appreciate your post, I don't do any of the socials listed on your site and noticed the word 'serice' if you wanted some backseat editor. Apologies if hn comment in the wrong place for the feedback.

[LorenzoGood]

> As a random example, I googled "packaging python for nix" and the top result [1] is just way too complex for something that should be pretty simple.

Aware that this is more of a critique about the documentation situation, as opposed to the python packaging situation. However, there is poetry2nix[1]. Which makes packaging look something like this:

    myPythonApp = mkPoetryApplication { projectDir = ./.; };

[1](https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix)(although it has been merged into nixpkgs master)

[p_l]

poetry2nix has actually been deprecated[1], and is in my experience subtly broken, as is the entire python packaging mechanism in Nix[2].

So we're now getting yet another attempt, this time called pyproject-nix[3].

I'm now considering taking similar stab with common lisp packaging, because the amount of time I lost fighting Nix trying to run a development environment is making me reconsider using Nix at all.

[1] https://github.com/nix-community/poetry2nix#:~:text=announce...

[2] https://pyproject-nix.github.io/pyproject.nix/build.html

[3] https://pyproject-nix.github.io/pyproject.nix

[from-nibly]

Nixos also makes deploying k3s a breeze. Even with etcd.

[Havoc]

Id definitely plan more than 2gb for a k8s node. The overhead is nontrivial.