I frequently reinstall Linux. Is there a tool to say what to install and configure that I can just run once after OS install? Things like

  • Install neovim, signal, steam
  • Configure firefox, desktop environment

I’m using this for just me, on my personal machine.

I don’t anticipate it’s possible between different distros, so assume I’m reinstalling the same distro.

EDIT: thanks for replies. I’m mostly seeing Ansible and NixOS. I’ll start looking at those.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
    2·
    8 hours ago

    Yeah, I can see that. But I don’t think that knowing Ansible will teach you that difference. OP seems to know enough about Linux to be comfortable so I would expect him to be able to distinguish between those.

    I agree that Nix has a steep learning curve and it’s not for everyone, but OP specifically asked for a way to declare their system, and Ansible doesn’t work for something you’ll setup now to use in 6 months when you decide to reinstall the system, because the best case scenario is you get your system as it was 6 months ago, but more realistically it doesn’t work and you have to spend time fixing it or doing it manually.

    Don’t get me wrong, Ansible is great, I manage my home server with it, but if I go a while without running the pipeline when I do it rolls back several changes I made manually to test and forgot to consolidate. Nix is annoying because it forces you to declare everything every time, but you’re guaranteed to get the same result you have now, which is very important for the case OP asked about.