nixos-dotfiles

A collection of dotfiles to configure NixOS

Things to do after new Installation

• Setup git

git config --global user.name "USER_NAME"
git config --global user.email "USER_EMAIL"

Useful Things to Know

Enable Flakes by Default

# DESCRIPTION: Enable flakes in <configuration.nix>
# SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACybVzRvDhs&t=543s
nix.settings.experimental-feautres = [ "nix-command" "flakes" ];

REMARKS:

Requires execution of

sudo nixos-rebuild switch

to take effect.

Change NixOS Configuration to the one Specified in Flake

sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake <FILEPATH>#<CONFIGNAME>

REMARKS:

• If the system's hostname is identical to <CONFIGNAME> specified in the Flake, #<CONFIGNAME> can be omitted.
• If the Flake file name is flake.nix, one does not have to give a full file path, but only needs to specify the directory where the Flake is located.

SOURCE:
Youtube Video: Libre Phoenix: You Should Use Flakes Right Away in NixOS!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACybVzRvDhs&t=1346s

Activate Home Manager of Stable Branch in Standalone Mode

1. Open Terminal and add nix-channel for stable Home Manager Release

nix-channel --add https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/release-23.11.tar.gz home-manager
nix-channel --update

2. Install Home Manager

nix-shell '<home-manager>' -A install

Running Home Manager

This flake requires the home manager to be run as follows:

home-manager switch --flake <PATH>#<USERNAME>

For example:

home-manager switch --flake .#nixos

Eventhough the username was identical with the name of the configuration, the configuration would otherwise not be found.

Permission Issue with Flake.lock

While running home-manager switch --flake, there might be an error that the flake.lock file cannot be opened. This might happen if at some point in time a sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake command has been run.
In some cases, it is sufficient to run sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake to update all the flake settings properly. This should work for changes required by NixOS and/or Home Manager. If not, the other option is to set the permissions:

sudo chown <USERNAME> flake.lock
sudo chgrp users flake.lock

Source: https://youtu.be/IiyBeR-Guqw?si=j4Jk_bOjpTWtI_SA&t=1001

Warning: Option will be overwritten

Some changes like in the Firefox configuration will not work unless the backup option is set

home-manager switch -b backup --flake <PATH>#<USERNAME>

Problems with hardware-configuration.nix

If the hardware configuration is faulty or will not be regenerate properly to take into account recent change, the file can be also forced to be recreated:

sudo nixos-generate-config

This creates /etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix. If the nixos-rebuild should be done with this flake located in the `~/.dotfiles directory, it has to be copied. . The hardware configuration file is absolutely necessary; if deleted, one will only obtain an error message, and the file will not automatically be created.

Mounted Devices might be no longer accessible after nixos-rebuild

Before running

sudo nixos-rebuild switch

one should make sure that there are no devices mounted. Otherwise it might occur that the device will be unmountable after the rebuild due to ownership errors. Occured with ntfs formatted harddrive.

General Inspiration:
https://gitlab.com/Oglo12/nixos-config

Specific Inspiration (Power Saving, Greeter BG, Garbage Collection):
https://github.com/AlexCKunze/NixOS-build/blob/main/etc/nixos/configuration.nix

Custom Firefox Config:
https://github.com/NapoleonWils0n/nixos-dotfiles/blob/master/nixos-dotfiles.org
https://github.com/mahmoudk1000/nix-config