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mamcx

My main gripe is documentation.

Look at this:

https://nixos.wiki/wiki/PostgreSQL

Now, the real "workflow" with nix is look at other setups, or just look at the code:

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/s...

And look at the code is the only reliable way to see what exactly is supported.

My second gripe is the fact is hard to see what nix do. Today I hit this trouble:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/x46w98/why_new_user_...

The thing is: Nixos not tell what is doing. `verbose` is too much noise.

What I wish now is something like:

    nix change nothing (if my changes somehow don't do anything, like in my issue) 

    nix setup users...
    nix setup postgresql

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I'm looking at your second link, and it's not really that bad if you are familiar with nix. It's a standard pattern for a package with options. Mostly a long enumerated list, not any different from a long enumerated list of the postgres options themselves. The great thing about it is that it's a single DSL, instead of 10,000 DSLs, one for each package you install.

I do think command line options to do what you ask would be nice, but in order to keep the declarative reprudicibility you get with nix, those commands would need to operate on nix config rather than the system itself. They could update the config then update the system based on the config, so it could look like one step even though it is two behind the scenes.

Yeah, I think "look at the code" is not that bad if is embraced, like the docs of Rust. But half-docs in wiki, then in another links with options, then in code not work, IMHO.

> What I wish now is something like:

> nix change nothing (if my changes somehow don't do anything, like in my issue)

I miss this feedback greatly having used Ansible since 2013 and only this year diving into a single NixOS installation as my intro.

Yeah, dealing with user directory is a pain, and it is a pain because you can't make it completely functional (what about passwords). And it is the only place I found where nix doesn't work as you would expect it to in my 3 years of nixos use.

You can use agenix for secrets management. You can store all secrets encrypted with your SSH key in public config. The only non functional part is installing your SSH key, which is probably not a bad thing.

Are you using home-manager for that?

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