I recent transitoned to using boot.initrd.systemd.enable = true on NixOS. It wasn’t terrible to figure out, but I did have some migrations to figure out for my boot process customizations. This is the blog post I wish I had to read first regardless 😅.

For many system configurations, transitioning to a systemd based initrd process will just work with the one config line above. This post gets into config patterns that typically require migration, what my personal migration looked like, and advice for debugging boot processes for any migration.

I’ve been using linux for quite a while. This has included personal, academic, and professional use. I started using NixOS on my physical machines last year, and I already have a really difficult time imaginging not using NixOS. I wanted to put together a post to talk about what I think is really unique, interesting, and compelling about it.

This gets a bit into some of the internals. I’ll try to keep it general and understandable without prior knowledge of NixOS or the Nix language.

Microsoft is starting to allow external identity providers to act as multi-factor authentication as a part of their authentication flows. This is currently documented as a preview feature on their website.

I worked with a client to implement support for this integration. This post has some thoughts, notes, surprises, and feedback from that experience.