I can haz smoller NixOS ISOs?

5 hours ago

NixOS allows creating VMs from configurations easily, but sometimes an ISO is needed for broader compatibility.
A minimal NixOS ISO was initially 458MB, with the majority (416MB) being userspace in a squashfs file.
Disabling Nix and documentation reduced the ISO to 384MB, but some dependencies like Boost remained due to systemd services.
Further tweaks, such as disabling SSH by providing stub options and removing kernel modules, reduced size to 197MB.
Using experimental features to replace Perl in system activation brought the ISO down to 183MB.
The process involved stripping non-essential packages, but trade-offs include limited runtime module loading and missing tools.
This approach may suit specialized, minimal use cases but isn't recommended for general-purpose or desktop systems.

Hasty Briefsbeta