Nix starter kit

NOTE: This setup has only been tested on macOS so far. If you need it on any other architecture/OS, talk to Johannes and we’ll adapt it accordingly.

Provisioning a fresh system

• Install the Nix package manager
• On the target system, clone this repository to ~/.config/home-manager, for instance:

mkdir -p ~/.config
git clone https://github.com/active-group/nix-starter-kit ~/.config/home-manager
cd ~/.config/home-manager

• cp user-settings.nix.template user-settings.nix
• Edit user-settings.nix
• To configure “modules” like Emacs, zsh, or others, check the README files in their respective subdirectories
• Run ./bootstrap.sh (this just enables Flakes support for Nix by changing a configuration file, and then uses home-manager to install the first version of your system)
• For new people: Create or add an SSH key pair and make sure access to our GitLab is working. If you already have one set up, there is nothing for you to do.
• If you wish to use LaTeX with batteries included, then you need to clone the howto repository to ~/howto. If you already have a working LaTeX setup, you don’t need to change anything.

Usage

Adding software

On https://search.nixos.org/packages you can search for packages you’d like to have available on your system. Add those packages to your user-settings.nix in the respective list.

To “activate” a new configuration, always execute

home-manager switch

Out-of-office notifications via sieve-connect

The file message.template contains a template for the message you wish to be shown. Create a copy of this file named message:

cp ./sieve/message.template ./sieve/message

Now edit it according to your preferences and personal details. To then activate the notification, execute

./sieve/sieve.sh activate

Note: you will be asked for you IMAP/Sieve username (only) on first use. This is your mail address, not your LDAP user name.

To deactivate the notifications, execute

./sieve/sieve.sh deactivate

Keeping things up to date

Run this in the shell

cd ~/.config/home-manager
git pull
home-manager switch

Updating Nixpkgs (for admins)

Check:

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/branches

Go to the desired release branch. nixpkgsRev is latest commit of this branch.

If you change the release channel, update stateVersion.