dotfiles VS nixos-config

I’ve found it most helpful to review other people’s configurations to learn Nix.

Some specific ones I really like:

https://github.com/malob/nixpkgs

https://github.com/fufexan/dotfiles

I keep a not comprehensive GitHub Stars list of Nix stuff I find here if you want more:

https://github.com/stars/heywoodlh/lists/nix

If you aren’t familiar, Nix-Darwin allows you to codify your MacOS deployments in a fashion comparable to NixOS. As a huge Nix-Darwin user myself, I have found malob’s repo extremely helpful for ideas with MacOS configuration. Nix-Darwin has made me so happy as a MacOS user. :)

Some other unsolicited tips:

1. Start with Nix flakes for configuration

2. Invest in Home-Manager before NixOS or Nix-Darwin

3. Ask people for help in Matrix or Discourse — my experience is that Nix-related folk are very welcoming and understanding

Good luck!

If you are interested in seeing what a more advanced flake config looks like there is mine https://github.com/Kranzes/nix-config (shameless plug) and fufexan's https://github.com/fufexan/dotfiles.

I also took a lot of inspiration from this NixOS config that I think demonstrates a lot of things you can do with them.

Check this repo for reference https://github.com/MatthiasBenaets/nixos-config

The other one I've seen seems more elegant, but I've only seen once and doesn't seem to be fully explain by the author: https://github.com/MatthiasBenaets/nixos-config/blob/master/flake.nix I've tried what he's showcasing here, but it doesn't work the variables are undefined and the tips given by nix-rebuild aren't enough for me to make sense of it.

# nixos-generate-config --root /mnt # git clone https://github.com/matthiasbenaets/nixos-config /mnt/etc/nixos/ (I think this can also be avoided I forgot to check this :| ) # cp /mnt/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix /mnt/etc/nixos/nixos-config/hosts//. # cd /mnt/etc/nixos/ # nixos-install --flake .#