But to be fair, Nix is not the only answer to that. There are lots of tools for just dotfiles but you can also build something using e.g. ansible to manage everything.

All my computers have their config in a git repo. That includes users, packages, services, dotfiles, /etc configs and so on. I used ansible before writing my own tool. I can install Arch from scratch and only need to partition, run one script and then apply my config on first boot using my tool to have my system restored. I know it’s not as declarative and absolute/reproducible as Nix, but it works and it’s way less painful than my last attempt at giving NixOS a go.

The code of the packages is the documentation. So the newcomers better start learning Nix language and reading the paper about how Nix works under the hood before they get started! /s

But seriously, I used NixOs for about 2 years almost 10 years ago and while it was/is fascinating when you have everything setup, getting there and maintaining everything across so many packages that each have their own way of configuring them took hundreds of hours. I’m back on Arch using a custom tool I wrote to fully manage my configs, packages, dotfiles etc.

The way I remember it is that there is no consistency across Nix packages and it all feels like a giant puzzle for people who enjoy spending time configuring more than actually using the computer. And I say that as someone who actually enjoyed getting into that when I had unlimited time.

But why if the customer didn’t need any support and didn’t cause any cost on your side? In B2B you are often mostly paying for the actual customer support, no?

How is it fair to not need any support and then have to pay for past months of smooth operation to get (security?) updates?

Edit: I get that further development and keeping products secure isn’t free, but why not make it e.g. a 6/12 month subscription then? That way you can’t just pay for a single month to get your issue resolved/software updated but also don’t need to pay for the past.