Now Dutch government developing a sovereign Linux desktop on top of NixOS after France plans to replace Windows with a hardened configuration built on NixOS

24 days ago by inari to c/linux

Ephera 42 points 23 days ago

I have been thinking that NixOS might be a cool base for governments or whatever to build their 'distro' on top. Because you just need a config file, where it says you want 1 KDE, please, with wobblyWindows.enable = true and then you're golden.

It's immutable as well, which you typically want in such organizations...

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Sanguine 24 points 23 days ago

I've also thought this for basically any large scale deployment.. Load up the config file and let it rip. Easily scale as many laptops / thin clients as you need.

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witty_username 5 points 23 days ago

Yes it's a sensible choice. There is also supposed macos and windows subsystem compatibility but I'm not sure what that adds in practice. Anyone have experience with this in NixOS?

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Ephera 5 points 23 days ago

I just know that the macOS thingamabob is called nix-darwin. A colleague, who presumably also just watched a video about it, said that it does work, but it needs a bit of extra setup.
Well, and presumably, the ecosystem is smaller, so you probably won't find as many pre-made modules as for Linux programs.

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BCsven 3 points 23 days ago path: 0 26003771 26010245, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 2
Ephera 1 point 23 days ago

Hmm, that's just the initial configuration, though, right? If you want to roll out updates to the config, you would presumably use Salt or similar (like they have a config field in that generator).

That's also an improvement for this use-case over your average Linux distro, especially because MicroOS is immutable as well, but NixOS is still a big step further into this direction.

I guess, what I really wanted to say in my previous comment is that NixOS isn't just immutable, but rather also declarative.
You define your system config and then it makes it so the system matches that configuration, whether it's a new system or a previously installed system.
So, it's not just a script where you need to describe how to apply or unapply a change, but rather the entire OS declared in a config file (and a ton of defaults).

The big difference is that you know the state of a system, when you apply a configuration. It is written into your configuration file.
Whereas with a distro which is merely immutable, even if you completely prohibit users from making changes, you still have the problem that someone might've been on vacation while your script contained a line to e.g. modify some config file.
If you update that line before they return, then you better hope your new modification logic can deal with whatever is on their system.

With a declarative system, this cannot happen, because the contents of that specific config file would be defined in your NixOS configuration file. No matter when you do the sync, the up-to-date contents will be put in there correctly.

(And yes, I know, if you get your scripts right, you can achieve similar results. The point is that you don't need to.)

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fruitycoder 2 points 21 days ago

They are both declarative. The main difference is NixOS has the package build system built into its package management vs Microos which uses zypper and the Open Build System for package building.

Both have declarative config files you either activate via command or get automatically referenced on reboot.

For microos it both ignition, AND combustion.

I'll be honest though both have been a total pain in the ass (I say with love they are still opensource and Linux in the best of ways).

There is a tool kit for sle micro (and I assume microos too) called elemental that builds them from ContainerFile/DockerConfig files that just feels more sane to me. If it gets too complex for a containerfile I'm doing something wrong anyways imho. That said I do really like NixOS/Guix ability to have the dev build tool, package build tool, distro build tool, and sysadmin tool all be the same language.

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hoshikarakitaridia 27 points 23 days ago

The sysadmins in the respective government must have a such a rush of serotonine being able to finally dit h windows

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inari 6 points 23 days ago

I'm sure most of them want to but get blocked by red tape and politics

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Magnum 3 points 23 days ago

Not really tbh they are windows admins ....

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rainwall 5 points 23 days ago

Plenty of sysadmims are multidisciplinary. A big part of the gig is fixing whatever, so unless the job is pretty silo'd you will tend to get experience with both.

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rozodru 19 points 23 days ago

great choice. it'll make the sysadmins jobs a lot easier that's for sure. will be very easy to roll out too.

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weps 3 points 23 days ago

you had me at the first part

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UnfortunateShort 17 points 24 days ago

Next distro war is WW3 confirmed

(btw. isn't France already developing an Ubuntu based distro? Do they hate Snaps too?)

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grandma 17 points 23 days ago

France has an Ubuntu fork called Gendbuntu which is used by their police force. Much like the Netherlands they are now also working on a NixOS-based distribution for the wider government

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jaygray91 13 points 24 days ago

maybe the French government went to Canonical for consultation and Canonical fucked up, as always.

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patruelis 17 points 24 days ago

I wish AUNZ would go Linux. I hate that we bow to Microslop!

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moldy_rice 6 points 23 days ago

Huh, never read the two together in an acronym like that

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ms_lane 1 point 20 days ago

Bunch of it used to be Novell once upon a time.

NDS > AD was a hell of a ride, even though it's all supposed to be x.500 (EEE)

AD > LDAP will be a pain point if they ever traverse that path, I suspect they won't though - MS Exchange is a hell of a drug.

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testaccount372920 14 points 23 days ago

Great news! Increasing independence from American tech seems like a great idea to me. Hopefully they also invest in the open source side of things so everyone gets to benefit from this move.

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MonkderVierte 4 points 23 days ago

Well, they kind of have to.

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A_Random_Idiot 5 points 23 days ago

Linux youtubers are about to get a deluge of new content

"can you game on [Country]nix?"

"How usable is [Country]nix?"

etc

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IndustryStandard 3 points 23 days ago

Great time to move off Windows.

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Squizzy 1 point 23 days ago

Same governments are selling out their people's data by moving the EU to the right, giving AI cunts our info for ttaining.

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