Snark aside, when it comes to nix boxes, I've personally basically given up - for all of the "system" software I trust apt or other package managers, whereas in the case of any "services" I want to run (mail servers, web servers, backup services, databases, APIs) everything is run in containers with custom bind mount directories, to not pollute the host file system with crap that might get left over when removing a service or putting it on another node.
So something like "/var/lib/postgresql/data" in the container becomes something like "/app/my-postgres-service-12/var/lib/postgresql/data" on the host.
I have just one directory to backup, I can also move it to different nodes entirely and OS upgrades don't break anything either due to the running software being decoupled from the OS somewhat.
But my Linux and Windows desktops? It's absolute Wild West over there and I just reinstall the entire OS every few years - they're beyond saving.
So something like "/var/lib/postgresql/data" in the container becomes something like "/app/my-postgres-service-12/var/lib/postgresql/data" on the host.
I have just one directory to backup, I can also move it to different nodes entirely and OS upgrades don't break anything either due to the running software being decoupled from the OS somewhat.
But my Linux and Windows desktops? It's absolute Wild West over there and I just reinstall the entire OS every few years - they're beyond saving.