Installing on a new machine

On a new machine, do the following:

  1. Install NixOS on a flashdrive. Replace “sdX” with correct device name
    dd if=path-to-image of=/dev/sdX status=progress
        
  2. Create the machine-specific configuration, see machine/ for examples.
  3. Boot the new machine onto the flashdrive. Booting onto a flashdrive is machine specific. Search it.
  4. Get my scripts
    git clone https://github.com/iowaguy/dotfiles workspace/areas/system-management/dotfiles/
        
  5. Run my installer script
    cd home/programs/mynix
    sudo ./mynix fresh
        
  6. Reboot
  7. Run post-install script
    git clone https://github.com/iowaguy/dotfiles ~/workspace/areas/system-management/dotfiles
    cd /persist/home/ben/workspace/areas/system-management/dotfiles/home/programs/mynix
    ./mynix install
        
  8. Add new machine’s syncthing ID to the devices in the configuration.nix, and add the device names to the list of devices to sync for each dir.
  9. Trust GPG key. The GPG-ID is the last 12 characters of the fingerprint from gpg -k.
    gpg --edit-key <KEY_ID>
    gpg> trust
        
  10. Setup pass
    git clone git@github.com:iowaguy/passwords.git ~/.password-store
    pass init <GPG-ID>
        
  11. Install doom-emacs
    git clone https://github.com/hlissner/doom-emacs ~/.emacs.d
    ~/.emacs.d/bin/doom install
        
  12. Generate ssh key
    ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "ben@<HOSTNAME>"
        
  13. install Better BibTeX
  14. Follow installation instructions here.

install zotfile plugin for zotero

  • use zotfile to rename all pdfs the same as their cite key
    • go to tools -> ZotFile preferences -> renaming rules -> set format to %b

export references to bibtex via zotero:

  • File > Export Libarary > Keep Updated > /home/ben/workspace/projects/zettelkasten/references.bib

Debugging install

If you get an error when creating the zpool that looks like =/dev/sda2 is part of the exported pool ‘rpool’=, run the following, and then try again.

sudo zpool labelclear -f rpool

If there is already a pool with the same name, it may be necessary to zero the disk, like so:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=<DEVICE> bs=16M status=progress

Icons

To find icons, use gucharmap.

nix-shell -p gnome.gucharmap --run gucharmap

Use ctrl-f to find the glyph, then right click on the icon to show what font