nixos-config

My NixOS, nix-darwin and Home Manager configurations.

Structure

I use NixOS inside of a OrbStack on a M3 Mac running macOS. In addition to this, I use nix-darwin to configure macOS with nix-darwin. Both of these setups also use Home Manager.

Modules

There are two kinds of modules:

1. modules/, which define NixOS or nix-darwin level options.
2. home-modules/, which define Home Manager options on both NixOS and macOS.

Configuration generating functions

The modules mentioned above are imported inside of two configuration generation functions:

1. ./nixos.nix, this function generates a nixosConfiguration
2. ./darwin.nix, this function generates a darwinConfiguration

These fucntions are used in ./flake.nix's nixosConfigurations and darwinConfigurations

How to fork this configuration for your own usage

NOTE: These instructions are out of date

1. Do a project-wide search of my username, cor and replace it with your_username. Be careful not to replace things that are not my username, such as "core".
2. In ./nixos.nix, replace the value of hashedPassword with one you've generated with mkpasswd -m sha-512 See here for more info.
3. In ./programs/git.nix, change userName and extraConfig.github.user to your GitHub username. Also change signing.key to the public GPG key you use for your GitHub account.

OrbStack NixOS config

1. Download OrbStack
2. Click Machines > New Machine
3. Select NixOS 24.05, CPU type Apple
4. Click create
5. Download this repo into /home/cor/nixos-config
6. Run make

macOS Nix config with nix-darwin

NOTE: macOS Nix config is not required for setting up the NixOS VM. For instructions on this, check the previous section

Make sure not to install Homebrew or Xcode Command Line Tools!

1. Do a clean install macOS, deny analytics.
2. Install Nix on macOS with the installer
3. In ~, execute nix-shell -p git --command "git clone https://github.com/cor/nixos-config"
4. Install nix-darwin with the nix-darwin installer.
5. Restart Terminal.app
6. sudo mv /etc/nix/nix.conf /etc/nix/nix.conf.original
7. In ~/nixos-config, execute nix-shell --no-sandbox -p cmake --command "make switch-darwin"
8. Download 1Password and browser extension
9. From 1Password, download SSH keys: id_ed25519 and id_ed25519.pub. Move them to ~/.ssh~
10. From 1Password, download GPG keys: secret-key-backup.asc. Import them with: gpg --import ./secret-key-backup.asc. Afterwards, run rm ./secret-key-backup.asc
11. From 1Password, download GPG trust-db-backup.txt. Import them with: gpg --import-ownertrust < ./trustdb-backup.txt, Afterwards, run rm ./trustdb-backup.txt

Native apps to install

• OrbStack

• Ghostty

• Tailscale

• 1Password

• Brave

• Firefox

• Signal

• Telegram

• ElementX

• Portal

• reMarkable

• World Clock

• Balance Lock

• Vivid

• Hidden Bar

• Advanced Screen Share

• Gifski

• Photomator

• Pixelmator

• Final Cut Pro

• AeroSpace

• Lasso

Settings to change

1. Change Screenshots folder and file format
2. Disable "automatically re-arrange spaces"
3. Disable auto brightness and true tone
4. Set capslock to control
5. Disable "recent apps" in Dock
6. Add screenshots folder to Dock
7. Sign in to email accounts
8. Set Safari search engine to DuckDuckGo
9. Enable Safari develop menu
10. Disable autocorrect everywhere
11. Enable "download full photos library" in Photos

Raspberry Pi setup

To bootstrap the SD card:

1. Enter orbstack
2. nix build '.#nixosConfigurations.raspberry-pi.config.system.build.sdImage'
3. cp ./result/sd-image/nixos-...-linux.img.zst /Users/cor/Desktop
4. On macOS, download rpi-imager
5. Insert SD card into MacBook
6. Flash the .img.zst from your Desktop to the rPi's sd card.
7. Insert sd card into raspberry pi and click the power button

Your Raspberry Pi should now be bootstrapped and you should be able to SSH into it.

To udpate the pi from the pi itself

1. clone this repo on the pi
2. sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#raspberry-pi

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Config is partially based on https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config