Configuration Management

• Shell scripts: Imperative (action only)
• Ansible: Declarative (action, but checks state)
• Nix: Declarative, but manages state, not just perform predefined actions.

Types of system management

• Divergent: The system deviates from the configuration management
• Convergent: The system is brought closer to the configuration management (Ansible, Puppet, Chef, CFEngine)
• Congruent: The system is forced to be in the same state as the configuration management (Nix)

Source: https://flyingcircus.io/blog/thoughts-on-systems-management-methods/

Related

• Vagrant: VM Manager, usually on top of Virtualbox, but can be used with other VMs
• chezomoi: Dotfiles manager
• GNU Stow: Symlink farm manager, also used as a dotfile manager
• git bare repos: Used to store dotfiles, but the setup is a bit clunky, although easy. Doesn't handle multiple profiles.