Comment by von_lohengramm

Before moving on to NixOS, I used to manage every USE flag on the entire system. Every single package install or upgrade would prompt a quick look into any USE flag changes and potential reconfiguration. It was really nice knowing your system with that sort of intimacy and _really_ lowered the amount of effort required to make changes to the system. But... nothing can compete with declarative and reproducible at the whole system level.