- if that's not the case - Nix is a package manager and system configuration language.
basically, you specify how you want your system to look using config files stored in one place, and Nix _derives_ the system from that config file for you!
- being able to take your VPS's configuration elsewhere and let Nix cook your system up automatically is extremely cool.
it's something that's always frustrated me with how Linux software is configured -
lots of little configuration files scattered across `/etc` and sometimes other directories, which ends up being extremely hard to replicate if you ever want to switch server providers.
well first of all no you don't, because other than fundamental config you change during installation, we both know Arch works pretty much works out of the box on your PC,
but even if you _do_ end up needing to change some config for a workaround, it's generally only because you need a _workaround_ - which may not be needed by the time you reinstall your system.
- most of your _important_ configuration is stored in `$HOME` y'know, and that's easy to keep between reinstalls - you have a separate `/home` partition after all.
- from a programming perspective, a derivation is simply a function `options -> path`, where `options` is an attribute set specifying how the output `path` should be derived.
