My NixOS Setup

Nixx

Custom commandline tool to build NixOS, written in Rust. Type nixx to see a list of commands. The binary is built from src/ via modules/nixx.nix and shipped in modules/base.nix.

For local development of nixx itself, drop into the dev shell with nix-shell (or via direnv) and use cargo build / cargo test.

Initializing a new machine

WARNING: Ensure partitioning is setup in config/machines.yml

Ensure GitHub/GitLab have the SSH keys on your account

nixx credentials edit # Create/edit credentials file. Add some blank entries then do:
nixx keys             # Generate and set any missing SSH keys in credentials file
nixx credentials show # Show the contents of the credentials file

Upload to GitHub/GitLab etc.

Build the install ISO with

nixx iso

Create a USB stick with NixOS ISO (in result/iso/)

This will wipe the USB stick and copy the ISO with 2 partitions.

nixx usb <dev> # e.g. nixx usb sda

Boot up NixOS ISO, then run the following command to install NixOS and reboot:

nixx setup -m <machine_name>  # e.g. nixx setup spruce # to start the installer for spruce

After you've logged in, run:

cd /data/code/nixfiles
nixx build -s            # Rebuild NixOS and switch to the new machine config

And then reboot:

reboot

Wallpaper

bin/wallpaper download [left|right] [--apply]

Syncing to public repository

bin/sync-to-public

Syncs this private repository to the public version, filtering out sensitive files like credentials and machine configurations.

SSH

SSH keys are used to authenticate between clients and the server.

Naming is id_<enctype>_<machine>_<service> where:

• enctype is the encryption type e.g. ed25519 or ecdsa
• machine is the name of the device e.g. spruce or aramid (See below Naming of devices)
• service e.g. github, gitlab, hetzner, home - In the case the of home this is removed from the key name when applied to the machine

Minoo needs an ECDSA key in addition to it's ED25519 key as ED25519 isn't supported by the SSH Server on Suuno.

Naming of devices

• Spruce - As the case was originally made of wood (14900K, RTX4090 PC) [ACTIVE]
• Aramid - Strong synthetic fibres (X1 Carbon Gen 12) [ACTIVE]
• Minoo - Some combination of Mini and N100 (File server) [ACTIVE]
• Suuno - A play on the previous phone name (Samsung A15) [ACTIVE]
• Miller - Hetzner server. Hetzner -> Hetzel -> Hermann -> Herman Miller [ACTIVE]
• Vellum - Writing surface predating paper (Boox Note Max) [ACTIVE]
• Darko - From Donnie Darko (Razer Blade 2019) [RETIRED]
• Mev - Mobile Electric Visions (Huawei P30 Pro) [RETIRED]
• Sirius - Brightest star in the galaxy (Starlabs Starlite V) [RETIRED]
• Soono - From Something of Nothing (Nothing Phone) [RETIRED]

References

• https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/parted.html
• https://qfpl.io/posts/installing-nixos/
• https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/
• https://discourse.nixos.org/t/tips-tricks-for-nixos-desktop/28488
• https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Backlight

Troubleshooting/Issues

Currently not using display scaling due to Renoise (and a few other apps) not supporting Wayland (blurry fonts).

SSH

GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -vvv" git clone example