plasma-manager VS .dots

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

Plasma-manager solves both backup and sharing.

A dude wrote a tool to configure KDE with Nix. https://github.com/pjones/plasma-manager Sadly it's a bit iffy, and settings aren't applied until you relog and other things.

Normally yes with the help of home-manager, but you cannot manage your Plasma configuration declaratively, yet. I think there is an effort for configuring Plasma here, but it is not complete yet and did not get any updates since September so maybe it is abandoned or paused for now? If you are fine with using Gnome, there is a dconf module in home-manager so you can also make your desktop environment reproducible. There is also xfconf module for configuring XFCE if you prefer that but I did not use it so I don't know if it is as good as dconf.

however, there is the Plasma Manager which should give you similar or even the same experience as GNOME

Although I still have to look into plasma-manager

As for declarative usage for KDE or Firefox, while I haven't done it personally yet, it is possible by adding extra modules. Home-Manager has config options for Firefox and Plasma Manager, an home-manager module for KDE.

Think I'm going to start using plasma manager and maybe try to contribute.

I've been using plasma manager for kde, it has a command to dump the current configuration to a nix file which is convenient https://github.com/pjones/plasma-manager

On NixOS (probably irrelevant for you, but may as well mention it for others) I've been using plasma-manager.

I have a wrapper function that just maps to dev to make life easier: https://github.com/dmadisetti/.dots/blob/template/dot/config/fish/functions/develop.fish

Never fully got it to work, so I just encrypt my secrets when I build my isos: https://github.com/dmadisetti/.dots/actions/runs/5055636638/jobs/9072093945

I have multiple files for each machine based on hostname. I have CI strip my config of all system specific information for general distribution. For reference: https://github.com/dmadisetti/.dots

I build a wsl image: https://github.com/dmadisetti/.dots/blob/template/nix/machines/wsl.nix

What I do: Keep secrets in a separate git repo as a flake, and have a stub flake, that can be overridden: https://github.com/dmadisetti/.dots/tree/template/nix/spoof

My dots

I have a script that will symlink my dotfiles in (github:dmadisetti/.dots/setup.sh), because you also end up with weird RO permissions if you do it through Nix. I think this is fine. It also means that you aren't stuck with Nix

The way I manage multiple systems is with a wrapper: https://github.com/dmadisetti/.dots/blob/template/dot/config/fish/functions/snix.fish

The only thing that is semi manual is setting up disks on first install (something you'd still have to do with arch). You can still script that: https://github.com/dmadisetti/.dots/blob/template/scripts/run-install.nix.sh