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Justin's Digital Garden

Install NixOS

Instructions and examples from Tony [fn:1].

  • Download ISO, select graphical installer or manual install
  • Before installs, create manual partitions cfdisk /dev/devicename, select gpt label type
    • 1G - gpt EFI system (example 1024 MB)
      • Mount: /boot
      • Label: boot
      • FAT32
    • 8G to 32+G - Linux swap (example 9011 MB)
      • Mount (if required) /swap
      • Label: swap
    • 8 MB - unformatted partition - required for GPT partition table
      • Label: bios-grub
    • Rest of space - LUKS2 encryption - / (can create manually in NixOS graphical installer)
      • Label: root
    • Install boot loader: on same disk as /boot and NixOS
  • See NixOS from Scratch for partition setup
Terminal window
sudo -i
lsblk
cfdisk /dev/vda


# gpt labels
# 1G type: EFI
# 4G type: swap
# remaining space, type: Linux Filesystem


mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/vda3 # root at /
mkswap -L swap /dev/vda2 # swap
mkfs.fat -F 32 -n boot /dev/vda1 # /boot


# Mount drives to generate nix files
mount /dev/vda3 /mnt
mount --mkdir /dev/vda1 /mnt/boot
swapon /dev/vda2


# Generate initial hardware-configuration.nix config
nixos-generate-config --root /mnt


# Use flake and home-manager nix configuration
cd /mnt/etc/nixos
touch flake.nix home.nix


# Make file changes below


# Make changes
nixos-install --flake /mnt/etc/nixos#nixos-btw


# Set user password
nixos-enter --root /mnt -c 'passwd user1'


# Reboot
reboot


# Create version controlled dotfiles to store dotifles
mkdir ~/nixos-dotfiles
cp -r /etc/nixos/* ~/nixos-dotfiles
cd /etc/nixos
sudo chown -R justin:users .


# Get dotfiles, make changes to home.nix


# Make changes
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake ~/nixos-dotfiles#nixos-btw

flake.nix

Section titled “flake.nix”
{
  description = "NixOS from Scratch";


  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-26.05";
    home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager/release-26.05";
    home-manager.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };


  outputs =
    {
      self,
      nixpkgs,
      home-manager,
      ...
    }:
    let
      system = "x86_64-linux";
    in
    {
      nixosConfigurations.nixos-btw = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
        inherit system;
        modules = [
          ./configuration.nix
          home-manager.nixosModules.home-manager
          {
            home-manager.useGlobalPkgs = true;
            home-manager.useUserPackages = true;
            home-manager.users.justin = import ./home.nix;
            home-manager.backupFileExtension = "backup";
          }
        ];
      };
    };
}

Configure configuration.nix

Section titled “Configure configuration.nix”
  • Change hostname, nixos-btw
  • Update timezone
  • xserver settings, including window manager (optional)
  • Change user name
  • Add system level packages environment.systemPackages, fonts
  • Enable flakes
time.timeZone = "America/Toronto";


user.users.justin = {
  # defaults
}


environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
  vim
  wget
  git
  alacritty
]


fonts.packages = with pkgs; [
  nerd-fonts.jetbrains-mono
]


nix.settings.experimental-features = [ "nix-command" "flakes" ];

home.nix

Section titled “home.nix”
{ config, pkgs, ... }:


let
  dotfiles = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/Code/dotfiles-nix/bm";
  create_symlink = path: config.lib.file.mkOutOfStoreSymlink path;
  configs = {
    nvim = "nvim";
    alacritty = "alacritty";
  };
in


{
  home.username = "user1";
  home.homeDirectory = "/home/user1";
  home.stateVersion = "26.05";


  # Pick up fonts
  fonts.fontconfig = {
    enable = true;
  };


  xdg.configFile = builtins.mapAttrs (name: subpath: {
    source = create_symlink "${dotfiles}/${subpath}";
    recursive = true;
  }) configs;


  home.packages = with pkgs; [
    # System and Files
    git
    topgrade
    curl
    btop
    # Fonts
    jetbrains-mono
    # DevOps
    neovim
    # Browser
    firefox
    # Shell, Terminal
    alacritty
    nushell
  ];
}

Windows Dual Booting

Section titled “Windows Dual Booting”

For time clock issues config, see Dual Booting NixOS and Windows - nixos wiki

/etc/nixos/configuration.nix
# Autodetection with os-prober (GRUB), os-prober is a tool to autodetect which other systems are present on the machine. Grub can be told to use os-prober to add a menu-entry for each of them.
# https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Dual_Booting_NixOS_and_Windows


{ config, pkgs, ... }: {
  # ...
  boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
  boot.loader.grub.device = "nodev";
  boot.loader.grub.useOSProber = true;


  # Setting RTC time standard to localtime, compatible with Windows in its default configuration:
  time.hardwareClockInLocalTime = true;
  # ...
}

References

Section titled “References”