Home Lab Beginners guide

Some have suggested some truly cumbersome terminology to replace it which is unfortunate because you very quickly run into the same problem the vegans have: If your choices are too unpalatable then reasonable people (who don't care or share your values 100%) will avoid them.

You need to make the choice easier. (hence why a lot of Vegan focus right now is on having enjoyable alternative meals).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wife_acceptance_factor

EDIT: I'm not going to argue this because if you're reading my comment you've already decided whether you agree or not and you will not be productive to talk to.

I will answer some common suggestions and why they're not reasonably sufficient and you can argue amongst yourselves about it. I'm not a sociologist or psychologist but I am human so take it with that lens.

* Partner as a replacement for "wife" is unfortunately more syllables making it just a smidge more annoying to speak, so people won't; but it's the closest to what is intended and mentally equivalent for most people. As a bonus it even encompasses the unmarried! Partner is also (commonly) said lovingly so it doesn't create distance in the mind of the speaker.

* Spouse is an uncommon enough word that it doesn't come to mind quickly enough; it also unfortunately comes across as unfamiliar (IE: not from a place of warm affection) and clinical.

A good replacement term should be something endearing because it's important to point out that this isn't a term of derision, the true meaning behind the phrase is that they love their partner and want them to be happy. It's just a boomer-humour type joke to hide behind "because I dont want a divorce" or "I fear my wife", which is part of the supposed humour -- so it needs to feel familial and affectionate.

I totally agree. It (nix and nixos) is/are such a pain so often. But, wow... when you get things to work it is glorious.

Quickly and easily syncing system/user/application configurations across multiple devices is incredible. The declarative approach means that the often laborious effort it takes me to get things to work pays off when I finally figure it out and realize I never have to do that again - and since it's declarative, I now have a documented functional configuration/example to grow and expand from.

My current project is to learn Nix development environments by building "Linux from Scatch" from Nix. I am making progress slowly, but every success is cemented and replicatable.

LLMs definitely help distill the sparse/scattered documentation, but I am finding a good amount of grit is still required.

All in all, I am very much enjoying Nix and hope to utilize it more in my homelab.

I don't think it has anything to do with genders per se but is an old adage with any hobby.The historical implications do point to a bias in understanding of 'roles' but I'm more comfortable with the approach that instead of rephrasing old adages we become comfortable with the idea that our understanding of the specific adage has changed.

I think not changing the adage and instead focusing on the shift of understanding can also point to how much we grow as a society, and we can relish in our evolution of understanding as it pertains to historical beliefs.

[1] https://thin.computer/index.php/2024/03/08/self-hosting-my-s...

Getting a basic system going seemed about as easy as Arch (if you consider Arch easy). But adding flakes and home manager to the mix is where things have run off the rails a bit for me.

I think a lot of the steepness of the learning curve comes from trying to go all in on flakes/home manager up front, and a lot of the online discussions and quick starts being oriented towards this goal. I’ve since scaled back my aspirations a bit and I’m focusing on just understand core NixOS with a monolithic config file until it makes more sense to my brain.

If you haven’t get, check out vimjoyer’s channel on YouTube. His content has been the most helpful for me by far, and it got me a basic setup going that I’m now iterating on. What I do love is that I feel like I can iterate with confidence. I have no idea what I’m doing for the most part but I know I can get myself back to a working state.

I think it will be worth the time investment in the long run, but yeah, it’s been a bit weird and the lack of a canonical approach makes it hard to break into the ecosystem.