mirror of
https://github.com/youwen5/nixos.git
synced 2024-11-24 17:53:51 -08:00
235 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
Executable file
235 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
Executable file
# liminalOS
|
|
|
|
This is a repository that implements liminalOS, my personal Linux distribution
|
|
based on [NixOS](https://nixos.org/).
|
|
|
|
Time wasted writing Nix code:
|
|
 + [](https://wakatime.com/badge/user/018dc5b8-ba5a-4572-a38a-b526d1b28240/project/de5e82f8-8a09-42cb-ae45-9c80f2ab5a41)
|
|
|
|
These are essentially just my NixOS configuration files. I use flakes,
|
|
home-manager, `agenix`, all the buzzwords. But it sounds cool to have your own
|
|
OS! (and NixOS is essentially a purpose-built language and ecosystem to allow
|
|
you to build your own immutable operating system anyways.)
|
|
|
|
Many have written at length about the virtues of NixOS and _declarative
|
|
configuration_ and _immutability_ and such. I doubt what I have to say is
|
|
particularly novel, but I'll leave a few thoughts about Nix and NixOS and why
|
|
they do things better anyways. In particular, instead of immediately evangelizing about the virtues of Nix, I'll first motivate the reasons for why I chose a tool with exactly its properties, based on my use case (but not to worry, the evangelizing will come later).
|
|
|
|
Essentially: allow me to introduce you to the
|
|
origins of [NixOS God
|
|
Complex](https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/kauf1m/dealing_with_post_nixflake_god_complex/).
|
|
|
|
If you would like advice on whether or not to use NixOS:
|
|
|
|
<details> <summary>see <a
|
|
href="https://github.com/hlissner/dotfiles">hlissner's</a> breakdown,
|
|
reproduced below:</summary> Should I use NixOS?
|
|
|
|
Short answer: no.
|
|
|
|
Long answer: no really. Don't.
|
|
|
|
Long long answer: I'm not kidding. Don't.
|
|
|
|
Unsigned long long answer: Alright alright. Here's why not:
|
|
|
|
Its learning curve is steep. You will trial and error your way to
|
|
enlightenment, if you survive the frustration long enough. NixOS is unlike
|
|
other Linux distros. Your issues will be unique and difficult to google. A
|
|
decent grasp of Linux and your chosen services is a must, if only to
|
|
distinguish Nix(OS) issues from Linux (or upstream) issues -- as well as to
|
|
debug them or report them to the correct authority (and coherently). If words
|
|
like "declarative", "generational", and "immutable" don't put your sexuality in
|
|
jeopardy, you're considering NixOS for the wrong reasons. The overhead of
|
|
managing a NixOS config will rarely pay for itself with 3 systems or fewer
|
|
(perhaps another distro with nix on top would suit you better?). Official
|
|
documentation for Nix(OS) is vast, but shallow. Unofficial resources and
|
|
example configs are sparse and tend toward too simple or too complex (and most
|
|
are outdated). Case in point: this repo. The Nix language is obtuse and its
|
|
toolchain is not intuitive. Your experience will be infinitely worse if
|
|
functional languages are alien to you, however, learning Nix is a must to do
|
|
even a fraction of what makes NixOS worth the trouble. If you need somebody
|
|
else to tell you whether or not you need NixOS, you don't need NixOS.
|
|
</details>
|
|
|
|
<hr />
|
|
|
|
<!-- prettier-ignore -->
|
|
> **lim·i·nal**
|
|
> 1. between or belonging to two different places, states, etc.
|
|
|
|
The goal of liminalOS is to allow my computing environment to exist in
|
|
different computers at the same time, and to be absolutely unbreakable while
|
|
doing so. Let's talk about existing in multiple computers first, or otherwise
|
|
known as some form of "settings sync". To the typical user, stuck in the
|
|
_imperative world_, this sounds unrealistic at worst, and janky at best.
|
|
Generally, people encounter environment or settings syncing in two ways: either
|
|
the entire service is ran in the cloud, so it's really the _same_ environment
|
|
accessed from multiple places, or it's some often half baked opaque solution
|
|
involving you making an account and sending all your settings to a sync server
|
|
(see: Mozilla Firefox).
|
|
|
|
The more technically minded may instead opt to create a "dotfiles" repository,
|
|
holding their vast corpus of meticulously crafted configuration files. These
|
|
repos often come with a janky `install.sh` that does its best to throw all the
|
|
files into the correct place. This usually works the first time, but trying to
|
|
keep the installed dotfiles in sync with a central repository is a whole other
|
|
problem.
|
|
|
|
But these solutions are generally used for singular services or applications.
|
|
Keeping an entire _system_ synced up across computers down to the minute
|
|
configurations and applications seems incredibly unwieldy, through our usual
|
|
conception of how we interact with our operating systems.
|
|
|
|
The more obsessive system tweakers might try a dotfile manager like `chezmoi`
|
|
or GNU Stow. I have not tried these so I make no judgements on their utility for their intended purpose,
|
|
but generally these solutions miss a key feature: they provide the
|
|
configuration, but don't install the software. But the software and the
|
|
configuration are fundamentally tied together; these are not concerns to be
|
|
separated. If the software is installed, it almost always needs to be
|
|
configured anyways. If the configuration exists, the software should be
|
|
installed. These solutions may work well for managing configuration, but they have the same issue as before: you also need to install the software you're configuring!
|
|
|
|
So, *nix hackers reach for things like [Ansible](https://www.ansible.com/), that
|
|
promise automatic configuration of entire systems. Though Ansible was designed
|
|
to deploy cloud servers quickly through the Infrastructure-as-Code approach,
|
|
some people opt to use it for deploying their systems quickly as well. I have
|
|
not tried it, but from what I've heard, it works fine for simple deployment but
|
|
gets quite unwieldy for more complex purposes (especially for personal systems,
|
|
which aren't expected to be as ephemeral as servers).
|
|
|
|
If you agree with the premises I've laid out up to this point, you might come
|
|
to the conclusion that I've made: to solve this issue, we need a solution that
|
|
does _all of it_. A unified tool for deploying software and managing systems.
|
|
And it must necessarily be declarative and reproducible, because that is the only way to sanely manage a system. Imagine working on a programming project where recompiling with the same source code would non-deterministically produce different results based on the environment!
|
|
|
|
Well, [Nix](https://nixos.org/) is the _purely functional_ package manager
|
|
(i.e. declarative, reproducible), and NixOS is a Linux distribution that is
|
|
managed entirely by Nix. Essentially, Nix provides a solution to the problem of
|
|
_software deployment_, and in fact was purpose built to do so in Eelco
|
|
Dolstra's seminal [PhD
|
|
thesis](https://edolstra.github.io/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf). NixOS is a system that
|
|
takes the power of Nix and applies it to declaratively configure an _entire
|
|
Linux system_. All of the software can be specified precisely using the Nix
|
|
expression language, a purely functional DSL used by Nix. And alongside the
|
|
software, it also configures it, effectively acting as a dotfile manager.
|
|
Indeed, many core NixOS services and a wide range of programs can be set up
|
|
through _NixOS modules_, where the program is installed and configured in the
|
|
same place. (and many programs like `fzf`, `btop`, etc have similar
|
|
corresponding `home-manager` modules).
|
|
|
|
NixOS is also _immutable_, which means that the system cannot be modified after
|
|
it is built from the Nix files that declare it. How do you make changes to the
|
|
system then? Obviously, we just create a new system where the changed programs
|
|
and files are included, and the old ones are removed. But they are not deleted
|
|
from the hard drive, they still exist in the _Nix store_. So, the system can
|
|
provide precise atomic rollbacks between each "generation" of itself. Broke
|
|
your GRUB configuration so your system won't boot? Messed up your kernel
|
|
settings? Just select an older working generation from the boot menu and you
|
|
instantly have a working system again. You never worry about breaking things
|
|
during either routine or massive system updates.
|
|
|
|
And because the system is fully declarative, and modifying the system is done
|
|
only through modifying its Nix configuration files, you can version and sync
|
|
them up with Git. This solves the problem of keeping system environments in
|
|
sync; now, you truly only have to keep one repository of all your configuration
|
|
in sync, and all the software installation and deployment is handled for you by
|
|
a system designed precisely for that purpose.
|
|
|
|
This makes it possible for me to share common configuration between a multitude
|
|
of entirely distinct machines, including an `x86_64` desktop, an `x86_64`
|
|
laptop, an Apple Silicon Macbook running NixOS `aarch64` using [Asahi
|
|
Linux](https://asahilinux.org/), and the same Macbook running macOS with
|
|
`nix-darwin`, sharing `home-manager` configuration with NixOS. Specific
|
|
configuration necessary to adjust hardware-specific details between each
|
|
machines are isolated to the [hosts](./hosts) directory.
|
|
|
|
This works exceptionally well, evidenced by the fact that I have (almost) the
|
|
exact same environment across three separate machines, spanning two entirely
|
|
distinct CPU architectures.
|
|
|
|
In essence, the primary failure of deployment scripts, Ansible and the like is
|
|
that they are _imperative_ - they must specify precisely _how_ to set up the
|
|
system, down to minute details, whereas in a _declarative_ approach, the user
|
|
can simply specify what the system _should look like_, and abstractions take
|
|
care of the _how_. This is what NixOS does, and it gives you remote syncing,
|
|
versioning (via `git`), and rollbacks _for free_.
|
|
|
|
|
|
## Installation guide
|
|
|
|
TBD. May use `deploy-rs` or the in-house
|
|
[dartgun](https://github.com/youwen5/dartgun) tool for easy deployment.
|
|
|
|
## FAQ
|
|
|
|
### This looks like a collection of NixOS configuration files and modules. What makes it a distinct distribution?
|
|
|
|
Most Linux[^1] users will agree that any self-respecting distribution must
|
|
include at least the following: installer, package manager, and some set of
|
|
default packages. Therefore, anything that implements the aforementioned items
|
|
must also be a Linux distribution.
|
|
|
|
liminalOS comes with the Nix package manager (nobody said you need a _unique_
|
|
package manager - Ubuntu and Debian are distinct distributions yet both use
|
|
`apt`), a custom desktop environment comprised of Waybar, Hyprland, rofi, as
|
|
well as various applications installed by default, and
|
|
[the means to generate an installer](https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Creating_a_NixOS_live_CD).
|
|
Therefore, liminalOS is a Linux distribution. QED.[^2]
|
|
|
|
### Should I actually install this?
|
|
|
|
No. You should instead use the modules as configuration examples if you need
|
|
them as they are heavily customized for my needs, which are not the same as
|
|
yours.
|
|
|
|
## Hosts
|
|
|
|
The modules in liminalOS are designed to be utilized by a wide variety of
|
|
machine configurations, including via nix-darwin on macOS. To that end, modules
|
|
are organized by operating system (darwin vs. linux), architecture (x86_64 vs.
|
|
aarch-64), and form factor (desktop vs laptop). Anything that is agnostic of
|
|
these distinctions is considered a "common module" and allows configuration to
|
|
be shared between the various host types. This generally includes core programs
|
|
like CLI tools, the window manager, etc.
|
|
|
|
The [flake.nix](/flake.nix) currently contains my configuration for four hosts:
|
|
|
|
| Hostname | Description |
|
|
| ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
|
|
| "callisto" | a Macbook Pro M1 (2021) running under Asahi Linux. Imports the laptop module sets as well as the core NixOS module sets. |
|
|
| "demeter" | a custom desktop with an i7-13700KF and RTX 4080. Imports the desktop module, the core NixOS modules, and additionally the gaming module. |
|
|
| "phobos" | Macbook Pro M1 (2021) running macOS with nix-darwin. Imports the core home-manager module as well as some darwin-specific modules for window managers and the like. |
|
|
| "adrastea" | Razer Blade 14 (2021) with RTX 3070. Imports the laptop module, the core NixOS modules, and the gaming module. |
|
|
|
|
[^1]:
|
|
also known as GNU/Linux, GNU+Linux, Freedesktop/systemd/musl/busybox Linux,
|
|
Linux+friends, etc
|
|
|
|
[^2]:
|
|
although this is not actually how the converse works, the rigor-hungry
|
|
mathematicians reading can cry about it.
|
|
|
|
## Keybinds
|
|
|
|
Non-exhaustive.
|
|
|
|
| Shortcut | Action |
|
|
| -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------- |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>W</kbd> | Toggle floating |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>K</kbd> | Toggle layout |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>E</kbd> | Open Dolphin |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>T</kbd> | Open kitty |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>F</kbd> | Open librewolf |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>R</kbd> | Open pavucontrol |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Space</kbd> | Open rofi |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Backspace</kbd> | Open logout menu |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>L</kbd> | Screenshot region |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>H</kbd><kbd>J</kbd><kbd>K</kbd><kbd>L</kbd> | Move around |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>H</kbd><kbd>L</kbd> | Move workspaces |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>H</kbd><kbd>J</kbd><kbd>K</kbd><kbd>L</kbd> | Move windows around workspaces |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Shift</kbd> + <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>H</kbd><kbd>J</kbd><kbd>K</kbd><kbd>L</kbd> | Move windows around |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>S</kbd> | Open Special Workspace |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Enter</kbd> | Fullscreen Window |
|
|
| <kbd>Super</kbd> + <kbd>Alt</kbd> + <kbd>S</kbd> | Move Window to Special Workspace |
|