Ask HN: Personal Machine Deployments

After the post about running your own mailserver, there were a few comments about how the install/reinstall/restore process ideally would be automated.

It then occurred to me that I should do this with a linux development laptop install for myself. I use git to manage my configuration files[0], and also my org mode[1] notes, and I don't see why I should stop there.

Any thoughts on best ways to go from new laptop -> restored dev linux image? How to manage packages, etc files.. maybe even use things like CoreOS?

[0]: https://github.com/codemac/config/

[1]: http://orgmode.org/