I stopped using configuration management a while ago for my servers because they are too complex and fragile for a sporadic usage.
My main issue is that you need to use them daily in order to keep them working and for you to keep muscle memory.
For a time I tried to restrict myself to only Debian package, but with the time I felt like it was too restrictive, and not enough flexible.
I also tried Nix and really liked it, but my main issue was me having to google every time I wanted to make a change due to config file/package being awful to write/remember.
Maybe you will take a different path, but for personal usage, configuration management is really a waste of time imho, the frequency at which you will touch files will be low, and your tool/setup will become outdated before you realize it.
And nowaday everything run inside a container, so you will have to adapt your tool to manage docker/podman/docker-compose at some point
> I also tried Nix and really liked it, but my main issue was me having to google every time I wanted to make a change due to config file/package being awful to write/remember.
I just use it package-management-style with "nix-env" instead of using the whole configuration language. Pretty simple and easy to remember.
I stopped using configuration management a while ago for my servers because they are too complex and fragile for a sporadic usage. My main issue is that you need to use them daily in order to keep them working and for you to keep muscle memory.
For a time I tried to restrict myself to only Debian package, but with the time I felt like it was too restrictive, and not enough flexible.
I also tried Nix and really liked it, but my main issue was me having to google every time I wanted to make a change due to config file/package being awful to write/remember.
Maybe you will take a different path, but for personal usage, configuration management is really a waste of time imho, the frequency at which you will touch files will be low, and your tool/setup will become outdated before you realize it. And nowaday everything run inside a container, so you will have to adapt your tool to manage docker/podman/docker-compose at some point