Personal config for NixOS (multi-host, WSL and non-WSL)

What Is Included

This config is a take on a productive terminal-driven development environment based on my own preferences. However, it is trivial to customize to your liking both by removing and adding tools that you prefer.

The default editor is Micro
The default shell is fish
Docker desktop on Windows integration is enabled by default
The prompt is Starship
fzf, lsd, zoxide, and broot are integrated into fish by default
- These can all be disabled easily by setting enable = false in home.nix, or just removing the lines all together
direnv is integrated into fish by default
git config is generated in home.nix with options provided to enable private HTTPS clones with secret tokens
fish config is generated in home.nix and includes a bunch of plugins

How to install

From the great book NixOS and Flakes

Before running the commands below, ensure hostname (networking.hostname or wsl.wslConf.network.hostname) and username in your /etc/nixos/configuration.nix are set to a supported value in this config.

git clone git@github.com:maicol07/nixos-config.git $HOME/.config/nixos
sudo mv /etc/nixos /etc/nixos.bak  # Backup the original configuration

cd $HOME/.config/nixos

# If /etc/nixos/nixos.bak/hardware-configuration.nix exists, copy it to the new config
if [ -f /etc/nixos.bak/hardware-configuration.nix ]; then
  sudo cp /etc/nixos.bak/hardware-configuration.nix "./hardware/<host>/hardware-configuration.nix"
  # Add to git (repo is located in $HOME/.config/nixos)
  git add "./hardware/<host>/hardware-configuration.nix"
fi

# Deploy choosing the host (note that absolute paths are not strictly required, relative ones are fine too)
# WSL
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake $HOME/.config/nixos#maicol07-pc
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake $HOME/.config/nixos#maicol07-galaxy
# Server (non WSL)
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake $HOME/.config/nixos#maicol07-server

Project Layout

In order to keep the template as approachable as possible for new NixOS users, this project uses a flat layout without any nesting or modularization.

flake.nix is where dependencies are specified
- nixpkgs is the current release of NixOS
- nixpkgs-unstable is the current trunk branch of NixOS (ie. all the latest packages)
- home-manager is used to manage everything related to your home directory (dotfiles etc.)
- nur is the community-maintained Nix User Repositories for packages that may not be available in the NixOS repository
- nixos-wsl exposes important WSL-specific configuration options
- nix-index-database tells you how to install a package when you run a command which requires a binary not in the $PATH
common.nix has common options for all hosts (shell, user, nix, docker, etc.)
wsl.nix only includes WSL-specific options (Docker Desktop integration, nix-ld, Nvidia in WSL)
server.nix is a placeholder for non-WSL server-specific settings
home.nix is where home configurations are set
home/programs is the directory that contains all the programs that are installed on the system and their configurations
- home/programs/default.nix is the entry point for all the programs
- home/programs/programs.nix is where all the programs are defined
- home/programs/git.nix is where the git configuration is set
- home/programs/micro.nix is where the micro configuration is set
home/shell is the directory that contains all the shell configurations
- home/shell/default.nix is the entry point for all the shell configurations
- home/shell/fish.nix is where the fish configuration is set
- home/starship.toml is where the starship configuration is set
- home/starship-minimal.toml is a streamlined version of the starship configuration that is used from the fish-async-prompt plugin

Utilities commands

Upgprade dependencies

nix flake update

Compare the package versions difference between one deployment and another

All switches:

nix profile diff-closures --profile /nix/var/nix/profiles/system

Between two specific switches:

nix store diff-closures /nix/var/nix/profiles/system-99-link /run/current-system

Note: The numbers are the generations of the system. You can find them with

nix profile history --profile /nix/var/nix/profiles/system

Note 2: If you only have made one switch then you can use the booted system as base:

nix store diff-closures /run/booted-system /run/current-system

Delete all the old and temporary files from deployments

gc

(from fish alias)