b-ran / dots

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🗺️ Overview

This my personal NixOS flake configuration, for my daily driver. It uses a mix of NixOS, Home-Manager, Agenix, and Stylix to manage the system. Note it's not recommended to use this configuration as is, as it's tailored to my needs. Feels free to use it as a reference or a starting point for your own configuration.

🌌 Screenshots

🩻 Components

	NixOS Wayland
Window Manager	Hyprland
Terminal Emulator	Alacritty
Bar	Waybar
Launcher	Rofi Wayland
Display Manager	SDDM
Theme Manager	Stylix
Wallpaper Manager	Swww
Notifications	Dunst
Lock Screen	Hyprlock
File Manager	Nautilus
USB Mounting	Udiskie
Shell	Zsh + Starship
Media Player	MPV
Web Browser	Firefox

⌨️ Keybindings

Keys	Action
Super + C	Close focused window
Super + F	Fullscreen focused window
Super + P	Pseudo focused window
Super + G	Group focused window
Super + H	Toggle window split
Super + Shift + F	Toggle window float
Super + Enter	Open terminal
Super + L	Lock screen
Super + D	Open application launcher
Super + B	Open wallpaper picker
Super + N	Open network menu
Super + W	Open windows menu
Super + X	Open power menu
Super + V	Open clipboard menu
Super + Y	Open waybar layout menu
Super + Shift + S	Open screenshot menu
Super + S	Screenshot tool
Super + R	Screen recorder tool
Super + E	Eyedropper tool
Super + O	OCR tool
Super + [0-9]	Switch workspaces
Super + Ctrl + ↓	Move to the first empty workspace
Super + Shift + [0-9]	Move focused window to a workspace
Super + ←→↑↓	Move window focus
Super + Alt + ←→ Super + Alt + Mouse Wheel	Switch workspaces to a relative workspace
Super + RMB + Drag	Resize focus window
Super + LMB + Drag	Move focus window
Super + Tab	Open special workspace
Super + =	Move focus to special workspace
Super + +	Move special workspace focus in relative workspace

🧑‍🔧 Setup

This setup assume modern hardware with UEFI support.

🗒️ Initial

Download NixOS minimal unstable ISO from here.

Create a bootable USB drive with the ISO, Ventoy is recommended.

Boot into the USB drive using UEFI mode, else the grub installation will fail near the end.

You are logged in automatically as nixos in terminal. nixos has empty password with sudo access. Switch to root with sudo su.

🗄️ Partitioning

Assume /dev/nvme0n1 is the target drive, replace it with your drive, found with lsblk.

1. Create a GPT partition table.

   parted /dev/nvme0n1 -- mklabel gpt
   

2. Create boot partition. Note I personally make my boot partition larger than 512MiB works better for
   NixOS config switching to avoid running out of space.

   parted /dev/nvme0n1 -- mkpart ESP fat32 1MiB 1024MiB
   parted /dev/nvme0n1 -- set 1 esp on
   

3. Create swap partition. Depending on your RAM size, you can adjust the size. 32GB*1024 plus boot partition size = final number.

   parted /dev/nvme0n1 -- mkpart primary linux-swap 1024MiB 33792MiB
   

4. Create root partition. The rest of the drive.

   parted /dev/nvme0n1 -- mkpart primary ext4 33792MiB 100%
   

5. Check your lovely work.

   parted /dev/nvme0n1 -- print
   

🗃️ Filesystems

Labels and names are important for NixOS configuration to work properly. found in hardware-configuration.nix.

1. Format boot partition.

   mkfs.fat -F32 -n boot /dev/nvme0n1p1
   

2. Format swap partition.

   mkswap -L swap /dev/nvme0n1p2
   swapon /dev/nvme0n1p2
   

3. Format root partition.

   mkfs.ext4 -L nixos /dev/nvme0n1p3
   

🖨️ Installing

Time to install NixOS with this flake configuration.

1. Mount root partition.

   mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
   

2. Mount boot partition.

   mkdir -p /mnt/boot
   mount /dev/disk/by-label/boot /mnt/boot
   

3. Clone repo.

   nix-env -iA nixos.git
   git clone https://github.com/b-ran/dots /mnt/etc/nixos
   

4. Do the installation.

   cd /mnt/etc/nixos
   nixos-install --flake .#desktop
   

5. If everything goes well, reboot. You should be greeted with the login screen. May need to remove the USB drive.

   reboot