Farid Zakaria writes about SELF, a prototype that replaces the ELF executable format with a SQLite database, arguing that ELF is already a database that reimplements many primitives by hand (string interning, indexes, b-tree pages, foreign keys). The prototype stamps "SELF" in SQLite's application_id field, registers binfmt_misc to recognize the magic, and runs a small C interpreter that reads loadable segments from the database, maps them into memory, relocates, and jumps to the entry point. Dynamic linking works either through glibc's rtld-audit interface or a fully SQL-based loader called self-ld.
The article advocates for NixOS as an excellent operating system for home labs, highlighting its declarative configuration approach, reproducibility, and immutability. It provides a step-by-step guide on installing NixOS in Proxmox, including addressing potential UEFI boot issues. It also explains how to configure and update NixOS, and discusses its strengths and weaknesses compared to other distributions. Finally, it introduces NixOS Anywhere as a tool for automated deployment.
