nixfiles VS Home Manager using Nix

Examples: - https://github.com/gmarmstrong/dotfiles/blob/master/nixpkgs/home.nix - https://github.com/balsoft/nixos-config/blob/master/profiles/applications-setup.nix - https://github.com/gytis-ivaskevicius/nixfiles/blob/master/home-manager/common.nix - https://github.com/xtruder/nix-profiles/blob/master/home-manager/roles/desktop/work.nix

And on top of that, it has the largest and most up-to-date package repository https://repology.org/repositories/graphs (100% official, has no such issues as AUR) and a super neat modules system that simplifies configuring your system and makes it easier to share your rices or whatever. Here are a couple of examples: - https://github.com/gytis-ivaskevicius/nixfiles/blob/master/config/cli.nix - https://github.com/gytis-ivaskevicius/nixfiles/blob/master/config/base-desktop.nix - https://github.com/gytis-ivaskevicius/nixfiles/blob/master/config/sway.nix - https://search.nixos.org/options

You may like this suites approach - https://github.com/gytis-ivaskevicius/nixfiles/blob/master/flake.nix#L46-L55 ofcourse the whole flake can be separated into multiple files and all, but that's how I did it since I find it more convenient to manage fewer files

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.