Nixified dotfiles

Initial setup on NixOS

1. Setup NixOS using the installer.

2. Once installed, edit /etc/nixos/configuration.nix and rebuild:

   • Enable sshd
   • Change hostname
   • Enable flakes: nix.settings.experimental-features = [ "flakes" ];

3. SSH to the machine.

4. Clone this repo recursively (need to setup ssh keys, use a nix-shell with git and neovim).

5. Setup a GitHub personal access token in ~/.config/nix/nix.conf (see doc)

    access-tokens = github.com:<YOUR_TOKEN>
   

6. Setup home-manager & activate it.

7. Copy /etc/nixos/*.nix to this repo to compare & adapt.

8. Rebuild nixos & switch using this flake.

9. Enable vscode server patcher (see https://github.com/msteen/nixos-vscode-server#enable-the-service)

   1. Enable service: systemctl --user enable --now auto-fix-vscode-server.service (it's safe to ignore warning)
   2. To prevent GC: ln -sfT /run/current-system/etc/systemd/user/auto-fix-vscode-server.service ~/.config/systemd/user/auto-fix-vscode-server.service

Initial setup on MacOS

1. Download nix installer & run it with multi-user mode enabled: curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh -s -- --daemon

2. Enable flakes: mkdir -p ~/.config/nix/ && echo 'experimental-features = nix-command flakes fetch-closure' > ~/.config/nix/nix.conf

3. Clone this repo recursively.

4. Setup home-manager & activate it.

5. Install HomeBrew.

6. Setup nix-darwin & activate it.

Initial setup on Non-NixOS Linux

1. Download nix installer & run it with multi-user mode enabled: curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh -s -- --daemon

2. Enable flakes: mkdir -p ~/.config/nix/ && echo 'experimental-features = nix-command flakes fetch-closure' > ~/.config/nix/nix.conf

3. On Linux, configure nix by adding to /etc/nix/nix.conf. No need to do it on Darwin since we already do it nix-darwin (see configuration.nix)

      keep-outputs = true
      keep-derivations = true
      auto-optimise-store = true
   
      # allow use of cached builds, require fast internet
      builders-use-substitutes = true
   
      experimental-features = nix-command flakes fetch-closure
   

4. Build ./x home build and activate ./x home switch

5. Activate shell by adding /home/appaquet/.nix-profile/bin/fish to /etc/shells and running chsh -s /home/appaquet/.nix-profile/bin/fish

Initial setup for Raspberry Pi

Notes

• https://github.com/nix-community/raspberry-pi-nix is used to simplify a lot of the quirks for Rpi.
• Because of the use of raspberry-pi-nix, there is no need for a hardware-configuration.nix as it's automatically generated & included.
• I use a Mac VM to build the initial SD card to prevent potentially recompiling the whole kernel on a poor Rpi.

Steps

1. On a UTM NixOS host, create the Rpi NixOS config, and then build and SD card: nix build '.#nixosConfigurations.piapp.config.system.build.sdImage'

2. Copy the result image to a SD / USB Stick or Nvme (via USB adapter): zstdcat result/the-image.img.zstd | dd of=/dev/the-device status=progress

3. Boot the Rpi and change password.

4. Follow normal procedure to setup home-manager & rebuild NixOS.

Common

1. The nix-community cachix cache may need to be configured and enabled manually before building nixos for the first time (cachix use nix-community).

Troubleshooting

1. It seems that when switching to newer fish, the paths weren't properly set. On top of that, it may be shadowed by a global fish path too. Reset fish paths with:

   set -ge fish_user_paths
   set -Ua fish_user_paths /nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin
   set -Ua fish_user_paths /home/appaquet/.nix-profile/bin
   set -Ua fish_user_paths /home/appaquet/.local/utils/

2. failed: unable to open database file at ... command-not-found As root, run:

   nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable nixos
   nix-channel --update
   

3. On MacOS, we may end up with an older version of nix installed, leading to flakes not working because of use of newer syntax in the lock files (see LnL7/nix-darwin#931)

   The fix is to uninstall the old one: sudo -i nix-env --uninstall nix

Cheat sheets

Nix

• Run a uninstalled package: nix run nixpkgs#cowsay hello world
• Run a uninstalled package, with fuzzy finding: nix run nixpkgs#(fzf-nix), or nr
• Start a shell with a package: nix shell nixpkgs#ripgrep
• Start a shell with a package, with fuzzy finding: nix shell nixpkgs#(fzf-nix), or ns

Fish

• Foreign env is used to source ~/.profile. Any local variables can be set there.

• Paths: fish uses fish_user_paths to define paths and can be persisted when using "universal variables" (set with -U).

  • To add a path: fish_add_path /some/new/path or set -Ua fish_user_paths /some/new/path
  • To list current paths: echo $fish_user_paths | tr " " "\n" | nl
  • To remove a path: set --erase fish_user_paths[NUMBER AS LISTED STARTING AT 1]

• Shortcuts

  • See https://fishshell.com/docs/current/interactive.html#shared-bindings for all shortcuts
  • With no input <alt><left> or <alt><right> to jump to previous directory in history
  • With input <alt><left> or <alt><right> to between words
  • With input <ctl>w to delete previous word
  • With input <alt>e or <alt>v to open input in editor (doesn't work on MacOS)
  • <ctl><alt>n: fzf nix packages
  • <ctl><alt>g: fzf ripgrep
  • <ctl><alt>f: fzf fd (find file)
  • <ctl><alt>p: fzf processes
  • <ctl><alt>l: fzf git log
  • <ctl><alt>s: fzf git status

Neovim

See README.nvim.md

tmux

• Shortcuts

  • See https://github.com/gpakosz/.tmux for all shortcuts
  • <ctrl>b e to toggle synchronized panes
  • <ctrl>b m to toggle mouse support (useful to allow select + copy)
  • <ctrl>b <ctrl>l to navigate to next window
  • <ctrl>b <ctrl>h to navigate to prev window
  • <ctrl>b Tab to navigate to last window
  • <ctrl>b <tab> to navigate to last window
  • <ctrl>b <alt><arrows> to resize pane
  • <ctrl>b r to reload config
  • <ctrl>b <enter> to get into copy mode
    • v for selection
    • ctrl-v to switch between between block and line selection
    • y to yank
    • H and L start line / end line
  • <ctrl>b q to show pane ids, then :swap-pane -s X -t Y to swap
  • History search
    • Enable copy mode: <ctrl>b [
    • Use ? or / and then navigate matches with n or N

• Plugins (via integrated .tmux.conf's tpm)

  • tmux-resurrect
    • <ctrl>b <ctrl>s to save current layout
    • <ctrl>b <ctrl>r to ressurect last saved layout

Resources

• https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/options.html
• https://daiderd.com/nix-darwin/manual/index.html#sec-options
• https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/