Wimpy's NixOS & Home Manager Configurations
This repository contains a Nix Flake for configuring my computers and/or home environment. It is not intended to be a drop in configuration for your computer, but you are welcome to use it as a reference or starting point for your own configuration. If you are looking for a more generic NixOS configuration, I recommend nix-starter-configs. 👍️ These computers are managed by this Nix flake ❄️
Hostname | Board | CPU | RAM | Primary GPU | Secondary GPU | Role | OS | State |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
vader |
MEG-X570-UNIFY | AMD Ryzen 9 5950X | 128GB | Fighter RX 6800 | NVIDIA T1000 | 🖥️ | ❄️ | ✅ |
phasma |
MEG-X570-ACE | AMD Ryzen 9 5900X | 128GB | Fighter RX 6700 XT | NVIDIA T600 | 🖥️ | ❄️ | ✅ |
palpatine |
ThinkPad P1 Gen 1 | Intel Xeon E-2176M | 64GB | NVIDIA Quadro P2000 Max-Q | Intel UHD Graphics P630 | 💻️🎭️ | 🪟 | ✅ |
sidious |
ThinkPad P1 Gen 1 | Intel Xeon E-2176M | 64GB | NVIDIA Quadro P2000 Max-Q | Intel UHD Graphics P630 | 💻️🎭️ | ❄️ | ✅ |
tanis |
ThinkPad Z13 Gen 1 | AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 6650U | 32GB | AMD Radeon 660M | 💻️ | ❄️ | ✅ | |
dooku |
Macbook Air M2 15" | Apple M2 8-core CPU | 24GB | Apple M2 10-core GPU | 💻️🎭️ | 🍏 | 🚧 | |
tyranus |
Macbook Air M2 15" | Apple M2 8-core CPU | 24GB | Apple M2 10-core GPU | 💻️🎭️ | ❄️ | 🚧 | |
steamdeck |
Steam Deck 64GB LCD | Zen 2 4c/8t | 16GB | 8 RDNA 2 CUs | 🎮️ | 🐧 | ✅ | |
minimech |
QEMU | - | - | VirGL | 🐄 | ❄️ | ✅ | |
scrubber |
QEMU | - | - | VirGL | 🐄 | ❄️ | ✅ | |
revan |
Z390-DESIGNARE | Intel Core i9-9900K | 64GB | Intel UHD Graphics 630 | NVIDIA T400 | ☁️ | ❄️ | 🚧 |
skull |
NUC6i7KYK | Intel Core i7-6770HQ | 64GB | Intel Iris Pro Graphics 580 | ☁️ | ❄️ | 🧟 | |
nuc |
NUC5i7RYH | Intel Core i7-5557U | 32GB | Intel Iris Graphics 6100 | ☁️ | ❄️ | 🧟 | |
brix |
GB-BXCEH-2955 | Intel Celeron 2955U | 16GB | Intel HD Graphics | ☁️ | ❄️ | 🧟 |
Key
- 🎭️ : Dual boot
- 🖥️ : Desktop
- 💻️ : Laptop
- 🎮️ : Games Machine
- 🐄 : Virtual Machine
- ☁️ : Server
As featured on Linux Matters podcast! 🎙️ I am a presenter on Linux Matters and this configuration was featured in Episode 7 - Immutable Desktop Linux for Anyone.
- .github: GitHub CI/CD workflows Nix ❄️ supercharged ⚡️ by Determinate Systems
- home-manager: Home Manager configurations
- Sane defaults for shell and desktop
- nixos: NixOS configurations
- Includes discrete hardware configurations that leverage the NixOS Hardware modules.
The nixos/_mixins and home-manager/_mixins are a collection of composited configurations based on the arguments defined in flake.nix.
- Boot off a .iso image created by this flake using
build-iso console
orbuild-iso <desktop>
(see below) - Put the .iso image on a USB drive
- Boot the target computer from the USB drive
- Two installation options are available:
1 Use the graphical Calamares installer to install an ad-hoc system
2 Run
install-system <hostname> <username>
from a terminal- The install script uses Disko or
disks.sh
to automatically partition and format the disks, then uses my flake vianixos-install
to complete a full-system installation - This flake is copied to the target user's home directory as
~/Zero/nix-config
- The
nixos-enter
command is used to automatically chroot into the new system and apply the Home Manager configuration.
- The install script uses Disko or
- Make a cuppa 🫖
- Reboot 🥾
I clone this repo to ~/Zero/nix-config
. NixOS and Home Manager changes are applied separately because I have some non-NixOS hosts.
gh repo clone wimpysworld/nix-config ~/Zero/nix-config
- ❄️ NixOS: A
build-host
andswitch-host
aliases are provided that build the NixOS configuration and switch to it respectively. - 🏠️ Home Manager: A
build-home
andswitch-home
aliases are provided that build the Home Manager configuration and switch to it respectively. - 🌍️ All: There are also
build-all
andswitch-all
aliases that build and switch to both the NixOS and Home Manager configurations.
The build-iso
script is included that creates .iso images from this flake. The following modes are available:
build-iso console
(terminal environment): Includesinstall-system
for automated installation.build-iso gnome
(GNOME Desktop environment): Includesinstall-system
and Calamares installation.build-iso mate
(MATE Desktop environment): Includesinstall-system
and Calamares installation.build-iso pantheon
(Pantheon Desktop environment): Includesinstall-system
and Calamares installation.
Live images will be left in ~/$HOME/Zero/nix-config/result/iso/
and are also injected into ~/Quickemu/nixos-console
and ~/Quickemu/nixos-<desktop>
respectively.
The console .iso image is also periodically built and published via [GitHub Actions and is available in this project's Releases](https://github.com/wimpysworld/nix-config/releases).
Nix is configured with flake support and the unified CLI enabled.
Here's the directory structure I'm using:
.
├── home-manager
│ ├── _mixins
│ │ ├── configs
│ │ ├── desktop
│ │ │ ├── aqua
│ │ │ ├── gnome
│ │ │ ├── mate
│ │ │ └── pantheon
│ │ ├── hosts
│ │ │ ├── phasma
│ │ │ └── vader
│ │ ├── services
│ │ └── users
│ │ └── martin
│ └── default.nix
├── nixos
│ ├── _mixins
│ │ ├── configs
│ │ ├── desktop
│ │ │ ├── gnome
│ │ │ ├── mate
│ │ │ └── pantheon
│ │ ├── services
│ │ └── users
│ │ ├── martin
│ │ ├── nixos
│ │ └── root
│ ├── phasma
│ ├── vader
│ └── default.nix
├── overlays
├── pkgs
├── secrets
└── flake.nix
The NixOS and Home Manager configurations are in the nixos
and home-manager
directories respectively, they are structured in the same way with _mixins
directories that contain the mixin configurations that are used to compose the final configuration.
The pkgs
directory contains my custom local packages with package overlays in the overlays
directory.
The secrets
directory contains secrets managed by sops-nix.
The default.nix
files in the root of each directory are the entry points.
[Fish shell] with powerline-go and a collection of tools that deliver a "Modern Unix" experience. The base system has a firewall enabled and also includes [OpenSSH], sops-nix for secret management, Tailscale, [Podman & Distrobox] and, of course, a delightfully configured micro. (Fight me! 🥊) My common scripts are (slowly) being migrated to declarative Nix-managed scripts.
GNOME 👣 MATE 🧉 and Pantheon 🏛️ desktop options are available. The font configuration is common for all desktops using Work Sans and Fira Code. The usual creature comforts you'd expect to find in a Linux Desktop are integrated such as Pipewire, Bluetooth, Avahi, CUPS, SANE and NetworkManager.
Desktop | System | Configuration | Theme |
---|---|---|---|
GNOME | GNOME Install | GNOME Configuration | Adwaita (Dark) |
MATE | MATE Install | MATE Configuration | Yaru Magenta (Dark) |
Pantheon | Pantheon Install | Pantheon Configuration | elementary Bubble Gum (Dark) |
Things I currently need to do manually after installation.
- Provision
~/.config/sops/age/keys.txt
. Optionally handled byinstall-system
. - Add
ssh-to-age -i /etc/ssh/ssh_host_ed25519_key.pub
to.sops.yaml
. - Run
sops updatekeys secrets/secrets.yaml
- Run
gpg-restore
- 1Password - authenticate
- LastPass - authenticate
- Tailscale -
sudo tailscale up
- Fast switching - https://tailscale.com/kb/1225/fast-user-switching
- Keybase -
keybase login
- Atuin -
atuin login -u <user>
- Brave - enroll sync
- Chatterino - authenticate
- Discord - authenticate
- GitKraken - authenticate with GitHub
- Grammarly - authenticate
- Maelstral -
maestral_qt
- Matrix - authenticate
- Syncthing - Connect API and introduce host
- Telegram - authenticate
- VSCode - authenticate with GitHub enable sync
- Wavebox - authenticate Google and restore profile
- Run
fonts.sh
to install commercial fonts
Some applications require manual configuration to apply the correct theme.
- Enable Stylus Sync to Dropbox to get Catppuccin userstyles and Enable Patch CSP
- Brave
- Chrome
- Chromium
- Firefox
- Wavebox
- BetterDiscord
-
betterdiscordctl install
- Add Catppuccin CSS
-
/* mocha */
@import url("https://catppuccin.github.io/discord/dist/catppuccin-mocha.theme.css");
@import url("https://catppuccin.github.io/discord/dist/catppuccin-mocha-blue.theme.css");
One of my laptops (sidious
) is a multi-disk system with Windows 11 Pro 🪟 installed on a separate disk from NixOS.
The Windows EFI partition is not automatically detected by systemd-boot, because it is on a different disk.
The following steps are required to copy the Windows Boot Manager to the NixOS EFI partition so dual-booting is possible.
Find Windows EFI Partition
lsblk -o NAME,FSTYPE,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT
Mount Windows EFI Partition
sudo mkdir /mnt/win-efi
sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1p1 /mnt/win-efi
Copy Contents of Windows EFI to NixOS EFI
sudo rsync -av /mnt/win-efi/EFI/Microsoft/ /boot/EFI/Microsoft/
Clean up
sudo umount /mnt/win-efi
sudo rm -rf /mnt/win-efi
Reboot and systemd-boot should now offer the option to boot NixOS and Windows.
Things I should do or improve:
- Add README.md to each level of the configuration to add context
- Do this: https://github.com/Electrostasy/dots/blob/master/flake.nix#L93
- Integrate ntfy
- Configure scrutiny
- Configure gh-dash
- Install Rosetta and disable Xcode Command Line tools on macOS
softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license
- Configure Tiling Assistant extension
- Add https://github.com/p-chan5/EasyPulse to Easy Effects presets
- Package for Defold
- Local package for PICO-8
- Add Godot. Maybe...
-
git-graph
and/orgit-igitt
integration
Before preparing my NixOS and Home Manager configurations I took a look at what other Nix users are doing. My colleagues shared their configs and tips which included nome from Luc Perkins, nixos-config from Cole Helbling, flake from Ana Hoverbear and her Declarative GNOME configuration with NixOS blog post. A couple of friends also shared their configurations and here's Jon Seager's nixos-config and Aaron Honeycutt's nix-configs.
While learning Nix I watched some talks/interviews with Matthew Croughan and Will Taylor's Nix tutorials on Youtube. Will Taylor's dotfiles are worth a look, as are his videos, and Matthew Croughan's nixcfg is also a useful reference. After I created my initial flake I found nix-starter-configs by Gabriel Fontes which is an excellent starting point. I'll be incorporating many of the techniques it demonstrates in my nix-config.
I like the directory hierarchy in Jon Seager's nixos-config and the mixin pattern used in Matthew Croughan's nixcfg, so my initial Nix configuration is heavily influenced by both of those. Ana's excellent Declarative GNOME configuration with NixOS blog post was essential to get a personalised desktop. That said, there's plenty to learn from browsing other people's Nix configurations, not least for discovering cool software. I recommend a search of GitHub nixos configuration from time to time to see what interesting techniques you pick up and new tools you might discover.
The Disko implementation and automated installation are chasing the ideas outlined in these blog posts: