unix-setup VS Home Manager using Nix

Just go into terminal. I've settled with zsh after forever with bash, but nothing really changed.

It works in all systems, mac, linux, even Windows (with WSL). The same script that I configure it can be used anywhere so I put it on git and just pull that whenever I need to configure a new system for temp/permanent use: https://github.com/Aperocky/unix-setup

Setting up vim (and other shell setups) have been the easiest things ever and this does it for me:

https://github.com/Aperocky/unix-setup

I had to do it several times over the years, even have a shell file that would install all the plugins straight from git. The process take no more than 5 minutes and I'm right at home in the terminal of the new machine.

vim with massive amount of plugin is my go to.

My vim setup looks like atom in terms of interface: https://github.com/Aperocky/unix-setup/blob/master/.vimrc

Very easy to setup, just add the .vimrc file and run the git clone commands after setting up pathogen (package interface). This setup is pretty nice to edit ts/js/py/rb and C family of languages.

This doesn't really work for any of the JVM languages however, those you probably want an IDE.. I tried my best in vim and it just don't work.

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.