Ever built a "minimal" NixOS image and been shocked to find it's over 1.5GB? 🤯

Bloated images are a headache, but it doesn't have to be that way. The second article in our NixOS appliance image series is a deep dive into shrinking a NixOS appliance, taking it from 1.5GB all the way down to relatively lean ~360MB.

The new post shares practical, step-by-step "tricks" for hunting down and eliminating unnecessary dependencies. You'll learn how to use tools like `nix-store --query` and `nix why-depends` to find out why things like Perl, Python, or even speech synthesizers are ending up in your build.

If you're looking to optimize your NixOS systems, this is a must-read.
Check out the full guide here: https://nixcademy.com/posts/minimizing-nixos-images/

#NixOS #Linux #DevOps #ImageOptimization #EmbeddedSystems #Systemd #Performance