My NixOS configuration

This repo contains my multi-profile NixOS configuration.

This configuration is still a work in progress and I wouldn't consider it ready for use, but it can be taken as an example on how to structure a NixOS configuration.

Installation

Note

I'm not 100% sure that this is the correct way to install a NixOS configuration from github, but it is what I am using. If you know of a better way (mainly, how to handle the hardware-configuration and bootloader configurations) please let me know.

Install default NixOS image

First, install NixOS on the desired machine via a installer ISO (for your own sake, use the Graphical ISO image, as this choice still allows you to use a desktop-environment-less profile, and it's much easier to use).

For this installation, install with Swap (with Hibernate) and set Allow Unfree Software to true.

(This installation might get stuck at 46%. It happens, and it takes A LOT to finish. Just make the logs visible next to the progress bar to make sure that something is actually happening)

Apply profile

With NixOS installed, start a shell with git and neovim using

nix-shell -p git neovim

Using this shell, clone this repo to ~/.dotfiles with

git clone https://github.com/Fran314/nixos.git ~/.dotfiles

Then, in the ~/.dotfiles/profiles directory, copy the profile directory of your choice, so to have a clone that you can edit to adapt to your hardware.

In the cloned profile directory, copy your version of hardware-configuration.nix (the one from /etc/nixos) to adapt the profile to your specific hardware.

Important

Cloning hardware-configuration.nix might not be enough! configuration.nix might also contain configurations relevant to your specific setup, such as the location of the boot partition.

It's important that you check your /etc/nixos/configuration.nix for these settings and that you copy them into the configuration.nix of the profile you cloned. In particular, pay attention to the following settings:

• boot.loader.* for the boot loader location and type
• networking.hostName for the hostname of the machine (I guess this isn't strictly necessary but it also isn't set anywhere else and you might want to customise it)

Finally, edit the flake.nix file in the repo to add your new profile by cloning the existing profile and changing the paths.

Then, update the system with

sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake ~/.dotfiles#YOUR_PROFILE_NAME

Post-installation

Despite NixOS being an 100% declarative OS, a couple of finalization steps are required. It's a bit of a bummer, but they're the last imperative configuration you'll ever have to do.

These operation might be necessary:

• copy your secrets to this machine (see restore-secrets.sh)
• run git remote set-url origin [email protected]:Fran314/nixos.git

Additionally if you're running the latias profile you might want to

• remove the unused version of the xdg-dirs (see remove-old-xdg.sh),
• (if you're using GNOME) add the nvim-memo window to the floating exceptions for pop-shell

Profiles

This configuration is structured around three profiles:

• latias: this is the profile for my personal computer. It's supposed to be a full-featured environment intended for multiple possible uses, from simple daily browsing, to coding, 3D modeling and more,
• umbreon: this is the profile for my homelab. It's supposed to be a CLI-only but comfortable environment, intended to be used for managing self-hosted applications via ssh.