nix-config VS Home Manager using Nix

> I tried to install NixOS using the live cd last week in a Hyper-V VM, but it failed to get anywhere due to SquashFS errors.

Heh, that reminds me of installing NixOS back around 2014. I didn't have any way to physically boot off the install CD; so I ran it in qemu, using my real /dev/sda as the "virtual" hard drive (which I'd already partitioned). Thankfully there was no interference with the host system (Trisquel).

I'm still using (and evolved version of) the same NixOS config to this day; it still contains the following comment ( https://github.com/Warbo/nix-config/blob/master/nixos/machin... ):

  trace "FIXME: Which modules are artefacts of using QEMU to install?"

Where nixpkgs2105 is a pinned revision of the Nixpkgs repo, defined in another overlay. My current Nix config has pinned Nixpkgs versions going back to 2016. For example, here's a bunch of such overrides:

https://github.com/Warbo/nix-config/blob/master/overrides/fi...

At the moment I'm using niv to manage the pinned Nixpkgs versions (the 'repoXXXX' entries):

https://github.com/Warbo/nix-helpers/blob/master/nix/sources...

`nix-env` is an imperative command, whilst writing a .nix file is declarative. In particular, the latter can be managed using git.

For example, here's a system-wide config dating back to Feb 2015: https://github.com/Warbo/nix-config

(That's actually a NixOS config; my macOS config is in a private repo, but it imports that repo to define its "one big system package")

> I'd like to see other configs from nix users too if you're still here!

Here's mine https://github.com/warbo/nix-config

I've used Nix/NixOS for about 8 years, but not delved into flakes yet.

It's probably overkill for what you are trying to do. But I have been using home-manager [0] as a way to quickly restore my working environment.

[0] https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/

$ home-manager --version 23.05 $ nix-channel --add https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/release-23.11.tar.gz home-manager $ nix-channel --update $ nix-shell '' -A install [...] All done! The home-manager tool should now be installed and you can edit /home/MY-USERNAME/.config/home-manager/home.nix to configure Home Manager. Run 'man home-configuration.nix' to see all available options. $ home-manager --version 23.05

Unfortunately until we find more volunteers in this area, it is hard to see status quo changing. See also https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/issues/607 and this ongoing project https://github.com/pjones/plasma-manager

> Channels are, AFAIU, a reference to some point-in-time/commit/version of nixpkgs

It's not specifically nixpkgs, but any Nix code generally.

Per the Nix manual[0]:

> Channels are a mechanism for referencing remote Nix expressions and conveniently retrieving their latest version.

e.g. home-manager's suggested channel is just the github tarball for the relevant branch[1]:

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

It sounds like you'd benefit a lot from Nix/NixOS [1], if not just home-manager[2].

1. https://nixos.org/

2. https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager

nix-channel --add https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/master.tar.gz home-manager nix-channel --update nix-shell '' -A install

I'm using flakes and home manager and not really sure how to go about managing my neovim configuration. I've read through some other posts, github issues, and various articles trying to suss out a good way to do this. Reading through other people's configs and posts was somewhat helpful but there is a lot going on I don't understand and everyone's examples I've seen vary wildly.

Said store path contains the home-manager repo. After the home-manager run, the store path is recreated.

I can't answer all your questions, but home-manager does have a dconf module that would probably be better to use than that external tool. Everything inside the options block are the things you can pass to the dconf module.