this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
50 points (91.7% liked)
Linux
48340 readers
423 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Both features are important IMO, reproducibility is for being able to define certain aspects of your machine in a way that you can nuke it and, as long as you have its configuration (declarative for Nix, other implementations might have it as imperative), bring it back just how it was set up, without differences or breakages; while immutability is for being always confident that whatever* you do to your machine, you won't be able to break it because the root, which holds the functioning core of your system, can't be messed around with, NixOS has both I believe.
*not really "whatever", because there are still some ways to break, but you have to be very deliberate in doing it (think
rm -rf /*
), but in normal operation you won't just somehow install something or upgrade your packages and be left with an unusable system