hlissner / Dotfiles

Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to configure your OS declaratively, right? Walked right into that NixOS ambush, same as us, and those dotfiles over there.

Quick start

1. Yoink the latest build of NixOS 21.05.
2. Boot into the installer.
3. Do your partitions and mount your root to /mnt (for example)
4. Install these dotfiles:
5. nix-shell -p git nixFlakes
6. git clone https://github.com/hlissner/dotfiles /mnt/etc/nixos
7. Install NixOS: nixos-install --root /mnt --flake /mnt/etc/nixos#XYZ, where XYZ is the host you want to install. Use #generic for a simple, universal config, or create a sub-directory in hosts/ for your device. See host/kuro for an example.
8. Reboot!
9. Change your root and $USER passwords!

Management

And I say, bin/hey. What's going on?

Usage: hey [global-options] [command] [sub-options]

Available Commands:
  check                  Run 'nix flake check' on your dotfiles
  gc                     Garbage collect & optimize nix store
  generations            Explore, manage, diff across generations
  help [SUBCOMMAND]      Show usage information for this script or a subcommand
  rebuild                Rebuild the current system's flake
  repl                   Open a nix-repl with nixpkgs and dotfiles preloaded
  rollback               Roll back to last generation
  search                 Search nixpkgs for a package
  show                   [ARGS...]
  ssh HOST [COMMAND]     Run a bin/hey command on a remote NixOS system
  swap PATH [PATH...]    Recursively swap nix-store symlinks with copies (or back).
  test                   Quickly rebuild, for quick iteration
  theme THEME_NAME       Quickly swap to another theme module
  update [INPUT...]      Update specific flakes or all of them
  upgrade                Update all flakes and rebuild system

Options:
    -d, --dryrun                     Don't change anything; preform dry run
    -D, --debug                      Show trace on nix errors
    -f, --flake URI                  Change target flake to URI
    -h, --help                       Display this help, or help for a specific command
    -i, -A, -q, -e, -p               Forward to nix-env

Frequently asked questions

• Why NixOS?

  Because declarative, generational, and immutable configuration is a godsend when you have a fleet of computers to manage.

• How do you manage secrets?

  With agenix.

• How do I change the default username?

  1. Set the USER environment variable the first time you run nixos-install: USER=myusername nixos-install --root /mnt --flake /path/to/dotfiles#XYZ
  2. Or change "hlissner" in modules/options.nix.

• Why did you write bin/hey?

  I envy Guix's CLI and want similar for NixOS, but its toolchain is spread across many commands, none of which are as intuitive: nix, nix-collect-garbage, nixos-rebuild, nix-env, nix-shell.

  I don't claim hey is the answer, but everybody likes their own brew.

• How 2 flakes?

  Would it be the NixOS experience if I gave you all the answers in one, convenient place?

  No. Suffer my pain:

  • A three-part tweag article that everyone's read.
  • An overengineered config to scare off beginners.
  • A minimalistic config for scared beginners.
  • A nixos wiki page that spells out the format of flake.nix.
  • Official documentation that nobody reads.
  • Some great videos on general nixOS tooling and hackery.
  • A couple flake configs that I may have shamelessly rummaged through.
  • Some notes about using Nix
  • What helped me figure out generators (for npm, yarn, python and haskell)
  • What y'all will need when Nix drives you to drink.