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by KingMachiavelli 36 days ago
> build an image from scratch with the packages you want

Using what? Using NixOS to configure a system is orthogonal to the system actually running the Nix binary. Nix/Nixpkgs provide well maintained package derivations and module configuration for the largest amount of software of any ecosystem. IMO it's far simpler than Yocto or Buildroot or the dozen OCI container builder ecosystems that go in and out of favor.
1 comments
xyzzy_plugh 36 days ago
Using Nix of course.

My point is that if you care deeply about what is being installed in the image, size, dependencies, bloat, etc. then perhaps using the NixOS abstraction is the wrong approach. Instead of building "down" by taking things away, build "up"

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bow_ 36 days ago
> My point is that if you care deeply about what is being installed in the image, size, dependencies, bloat, etc. then perhaps using the NixOS abstraction is the wrong approach. Instead of building "down" by taking things away, build "up"

Those aren't necessarily oppposing points.

NixOS is a declarative distro. It also happens to come with some defaults that, I assume, caters to the commonly expected use case (and maybe has some historical roots as well).

NixOS is not a minimal, build-from-scratch distro. It's more opinionated than e.g. Arch. For example, it ships with firewall turned on by default (https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Firewall). Another example: the default list of packages is somehow Perl, rsync, and strace (https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=26.05&query=default...). Blanking this default to an empty list is IME harmless.

The declarative nature is probably the subtext the author is trying to convey: what are the things one can do to disable these defaults, to reach a very minimal system (ISO really) that one can then build as one wishes.

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nh2 36 days ago
Seems to me that such boolean flags do not force you to think about "building up" or "building down". You just declare what _is_. Who cares what the default is? When you're building a minimal thing, changing some defaults is fine.
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xyzzy_plugh 35 days ago
As your sibling points out, it's not just about boolean flags: it's about the abstraction, which is opinionated.

I posit that it is perhaps more laborious to untangle those abstractions than to just write your own.

It's like improving the lighting in your house by going to the breaker panel and flipping breakers and splicing extension cables that you run up your stairs and down your halls.

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Nullabillity 35 days ago
I think NixOS itself could do a much better job here in terms of moving stuff from defaults into profiles.

But yes, it'd also be nice to have something closer to dockerTools.streamLayeredImage.

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