NixOS systems configuration

A work-in-progress Nix implementation for my Linux laptops, desktops, and homelab servers. Adapted from Misterio77's standard starter config with inspiration from 8bitbuddhism

Features

Contains

• Cachix: cache of prebuilt nixpkgs binaries to speed up buildtime
• Flakes: version-pins nixpkg dependencies in a lock file
• Home Manager: declarative configuration for user environment (packages and dotfiles)
• Modules: configurations encapsulated by role or function
• Overlays: extends, applies changes to, nixpkgs (nix package sets)
• Togglables: abstracts complexity away from frontend config.nix file
• Single source of truth - systemd timer & service invokes shell script to periodcally pull and build from this repo

Aspirational

• Declaraitive virtualization systems
• Scripting for initial hardware configuration
• Support for various WMs and desktop environments (KDE, XFCE, and Sway)
• Custom packages and services
• Secret management system
• Impermanent system; declaratively built on boot and connected to storage drives for data persistence
• Making possible use of nix related libraries (Snowfall)

Implementation

• Installation:
  1. Install NixOS,
  2. Rebuild with: flakes, proper hostname, and enable a system.autoUpgrade.flake pointing to this repo,
  3. Wait for autoUpgrade.service to rebuild from github:temhr/nixlab (with hostname's configuration)
• Updating systems imperatively:
  • Flakes: $ nix flake update --flake /home/temhr/nixlab
  • Home Manager: $ home-manager switch --flake /home/temhr/nixlab
  • NixOS: $ sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake /home/temhr/nixlab
  • Cachix: $ sudo cachix use [package_name]

Layout:

• bin: shell scripts for various functions
• cachix: prebuilt nixpkgs binaries to pull
• home-manager: user-environment config.nix file
• hosts: host-specific configuration files
  • globals: system agnostic configurations (applications, programs, services, user-account, etc.)
  • nixace: workstation config.nix file
  • nixbase: stationary config.nix file
  • nixser: server config.nix file
  • nixtop: laptop config.nix file
• lib: Unused nix code
• modules: togglable configuration elements
  • home-manager: user-relevant modules
  • nixos: system-relevant modules
• overlays: contains one overlay
  • default: allows for nixos-unstable repository as pkgs.unstable
• pkgs: custom packages
  • empty
• flake: the flake.nix (entry point of config) and flake.lock (version pinner) files.