🖥️ NixOS & Home-Manager Dotfiles

My personal NixOS configuration featuring multiple hosts and modern development setups.

Warning: These configs are highly opinionated - use as inspiration, not copy-paste!

🚀 Usage

🧩 Neovim Configuration

nix run github:rayslash/dotfiles#nvimcat
# OR use following for a minimal config
nix run github:rayslash/dotfiles#nvim-minimal

📀 Live ISO Generation

Build bootable NixOS ISO with live nixos host configuration:

nix build .#images.x86_64
nix build .#images.rpi-sd

🛠️ System Installation

Fresh Install Procedure:

⚠️ Important: Replace MYHOST and all INSTALL_* variables with desired values before running. By default, following instructions assume you are install the frost host configuration in a 3 volume partitioned nvme drive.

nix-shell -p git neovim
export INSTALL_DEVICE_NAME="nvme0n1"
export INSTALL_EFI_LABEL="nvme0n1p1"
export INSTALL_ROOT_LABEL="nvme0n1p2"
export INSTALL_NIX_LABEL="nvme0n1p3"
export INSTALL_DEVICE="/dev/$INSTALL_DEVICE_NAME"
sudo fdisk $INSTALL_DEVICE_NAME  # Create required partitions
sudo mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/$INSTALL_EFI_LABEL # Format an EFI partition
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/$INSTALL_ROOT_LABEL # Format Linux filesystem partition (ext4, btrfs ...)
sudo mount /dev/$INSTALL_ROOT_LABEL /mnt  # Mount root partition
sudo mount /dev/$INSTALL_EFI_LABEL /mnt/boot  # Mount boot
sudo mount /dev/$INSTALL_NIX_LABEL /mnt/nix  # Mount nix (optional)

export DOTFILES="/mnt/etc/dotfiles"
export MYHOST="frost"
export HOSTCONFIG_DIR="$DOTFILES/system/hosts/$MYHOST"
git clone https://github.com/RaySlash/dotfiles $DOTFILES
mv "$HOSTCONFIG_DIR/hardware-configuration.nix" "$HOSTCONFIG_DIR/hardware-configuration-old.nix"
sudo nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
sudo cp /mnt/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix $HOSTCONFIG_DIR
nvim "$HOSTCONFIG_DIR/hardware-configuration.nix"

sudo nixos-install --flake .#$MYHOST

🧠 Philosophy

Core Principles:

• 🔌 Explicit Wiring: Configurations are directly referenced via absolute paths - no implicit file tree crawling

• 📚 Layered Composition: Modules set defaults that can be cleanly overridden:

  # modules/kitty/default.nix
  { lib, ... }: {
    programs.kitty = {
      enable = lib.mkDefault true;  # Default that can be disabled
      defaultTerminal = lib.mkDefault true;
    };
  }
  
  # hosts/myhost/default.nix
  { lib, ... }: {
    programs.kitty = {
      # Explicit override of default
      defaultTerminal = false;
    };
  }

• 🧰 Utility-First: Abstract common patterns into repo-specific functions:

  # utils/lib.nix
  { inputs }:
  {
  inherit
    mkPkgs
    mkHome
    mkSystem
    ;
  }

• 🚫 Anti-Pattern Rejection:

  • No automatic inclusion of ./hosts/*.nix
  • No magic "profiles" directory
  • No recursive config discovery (except when explicitly enabled)

Zero-Magic Plug & Play Architecture:

# Anti-pattern vs Our Approach
# Instead of implicit path resolution:
./users/${user}/home.nix

# We use explicit composition:
mkHome {
  system = "x86_64-linux";
  modules = [ ./hosts/myhost ];
}

Util Functions

1. Host Declaration:

   mkSystem {
     system = "aarch64-linux";
     modules = [
       ./hosts/myhost
       inputs.my-flake-input.nixosModules.default
     ];
   }

2. Home-Manager Declaration:

   mkHome {
     system = "x86_64-linux";
     modules = [
       ./hosts/myhost
       inputs.my-flake-input.homeModules.default
     ];
   }

"Configs should be obvious, not clever" i.e., Direct file references > Convention over configuration

🔗 Resources

• 🧩 Starter Config - Flake template foundation
• 📦 Nixpkgs - Official package repository
• 📚 NixOS Wiki - Community-maintained knowledge base
• 🖥️ Hyprland Wiki - Window manager documentation

🖼️ Screenshots