[HN Gopher] Operating systems battle: OpenBSD vs. NixOS
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       Operating systems battle: OpenBSD vs. NixOS
        
       Author : zdw
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2022-04-18 19:50 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dataswamp.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dataswamp.org)
        
       | Yuioup wrote:
       | Apples and oranges
        
       | flatiron wrote:
       | > I know how OpenBSD work
       | 
       | FYI typo. Should be "works". Nice article!
        
       | evil-olive wrote:
       | I would _love_ to see NixOS-style declarative management brought
       | to one (or more) of the BSDs.
       | 
       | I'm currently building out a NixOS-based router to replace an old
       | and dying Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite. BSD would be perfect for the
       | job but the ability of NixOS to have the entire system configured
       | declaratively is enough of a killer feature to get me to use it
       | over something BSD-based.
       | 
       | if anyone is interested in pursuing something similar, I'm using
       | [0] as my hardware base and [1, 2] as example configurations.
       | 
       | 0: https://amazon.com/QOTOM-celeron-Processor-Fanless-
       | pfSense/d...
       | 
       | 1: https://francis.begyn.be/blog/nixos-home-router
       | 
       | 2: https://github.com/stanipintjuk/nixos-router
        
         | vngzs wrote:
         | You can write Chef targeting OpenBSD and run it in local mode.
         | Get to use plain Ruby instead of a hodgepodge functional
         | programming language. NixOS modules tend to be more "batteries
         | included" than your average Chef cookbook, but if you stick to
         | using native Chef resources you get something
         | (pseudo-)declarative and powerful.
         | 
         | Disclaimer: I use NixOS every day and I love functional
         | programming. But boy do I wish Nix had picked Haskell, OCaml,
         | or Lisp instead of inventing a programming language.
        
           | dr-neptune wrote:
           | Have you considered GNU Guix? It's modeled after nix but uses
           | guile as a configuration language:
           | 
           | https://guix.gnu.org/
           | 
           | I also used nix for a while and found the transition painless
           | on my non-nvidia machine
        
         | 1MachineElf wrote:
         | >I would love to see NixOS-style declarative management brought
         | to one (or more) of the BSDs.
         | 
         | In theory, an OpenBSD NSH configuration would have a large
         | overlap of features and functionality with the Nix-based router
         | configuration you've been working on. Btw, NSH allows one to
         | configure OpenBSD in a similar CLI shell as that of a Cisco,
         | ProCurve, or similar device. The shell commands make up a
         | configuration file that can be exported / imported. NixOS & BSD
         | is something I thought of but hadn't mentioned when someone
         | recently submitted[0] a link to NSH. Coincidentally, another
         | user brought up NixOS as a potential solution, only for the
         | comment to trigger some friction[1].
         | 
         | I've been dreaming about more integration between Nix and BSD
         | for a while now, but unfortunately, my skills and knowledge to
         | actually implement something like this are nowhere close to
         | where they need to be to actually create anything in this vein.
         | That being said, there are others who have done more, and so
         | Nix is available on FreeBSD[2]. Nix on FreeBSD has a long way
         | to go before it's as useful as it is on Linux/macOS - the
         | latest discussion on it is in the NixOS Discourse forum[3].
         | 
         | Appreciate you linking to the blog post and GitHub repo for
         | nixos-router. FYI, one other option available for Linux is the
         | Debian-based VyOS[4] which provides a familiar command-line
         | interface like OpenBSD NSH.
         | 
         | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30942489
         | 
         | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30966266
         | 
         | [2] https://www.freshports.org/sysutils/nix/
         | 
         | [3] https://discourse.nixos.org/t/status-of-freebsd/17786
         | 
         | [4] https://vyos.net/
        
         | infogulch wrote:
         | I'll be setting up this 2.5GbE fanless box [1] as a router soon
         | and this looks cool, maybe I'll test it out. NixOS' killer
         | feature for routers/firewalls is probably how easy it is to
         | revert to the previous configuration if something breaks during
         | an upgrade. Some people even run their firewall _in a VM_ so
         | they can try out different configurations without worrying
         | about bricking their main one, but that whole concern is nixed
         | (pun intended) with the way NixOS works.
         | 
         | [1]:
         | https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09PHHVWZ8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
        
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       (page generated 2022-04-18 23:01 UTC)