adharmOS as a Nix flake

Overview

• adharmOS is the Linux config I'm running on my laptop (named after my online alias).
• My goals are to make it keyboard-centric, snappy, and nice to look at.

Who

• Me! Just adharmic so far, but I'm always open to feedback and contribution.
• I do, however, have to thank all of the great minds behind the many open-source packages used in this project.

What

• A minimal, reproducible, modular, but still stylish NixOS-based Linux configuration.

Where

• This is made for my Framework 13 laptop, but the goal is to make this configuration system agnostic.

When

• Over the past few weeks, I've been diving deep into the rabbit hole of Linux and its various DEs and distros.

Why

• I've grown so tired of the cruft of pre-built operating systems.
• The inconsistency and lack of customizability of Windows made me jump to Mac.
• Tinkering with MacOS and hitting brick walls with big Apple logos on them made me jump to Linux.
• After trying to install Arch 10 times and restarting from scratch because I didn't jive with some part of the config, I took the plunge and went for Nix.
• The declarative package management is a game changer. I've rewritten so many configurations and I have minimal confusion about all of the moving parts.

How

• The declarative and modular model Nix employs makes it remarkably easy to test and run completely different systems with just one or two commands.
• The granular control over individual packages and their interactions means no more worries about version conflicts or rogue config files.
• The NixOS wiki and community are incredibly active and any setup issues I've encountered have had dedicated threads on the forum.

Notes

• flake.nix acts as an entry and exit point for the system configuration.
• It is what builds and returns the system using the submodules declared within it.

Installation

• The installation documentation is in the works.
• I haven't had a chance to try setting up this config on another machine yet.
• I want to try and make it a completely modular and self-contained system first.
• Here's my best estimate for how you might run this config on your machine:

1. Download and run a NixOS installation medium.
2. Partition your drive.
3. Generate a hardware-config file via Nix.
4. Clone this repository via git.
5. Replace the existing hardware-config file with your own.
6. sudo nixos-install --flake .#${hostname} in the repo folder, where hostname is whatever you configured it to be.
7. Before or after rebooting, run nix-shell -p home-manager.
8. Install the home-manager config using home-manager switch --flake .#user@${hostname} where user and hostname are whatever you configured them to be.
9. Adjust the configuration to match your needs!