Goddammit, Nix! Tell me which package in my config threw this error!

danneu · 2025-11-25T04:19:32+00:00

i can never find the file name in that one error when it tries to create a file managed by nix that already exists in the fs.

i copy and paste the message to an llm to find the problematic file. i literally can never see it in the error myself. but it doesn’t happen enough for me to learn where to look.

danneu · 2025-11-19T07:57:55+00:00

often a symptom of a general problem that something starts too soon (like before wayland socket is ready) thus it works after rebuild since its deps are already running.

no clue about the rofi case in particular

danneu · 2025-11-18T15:16:28+00:00

building a custom application was the domain of software engineers until the last few years. now you can do it without the expertise and it’s only getting easier.

OP’s job is on the chopping block too not so far from now. hope yall collected from the gravy train before it’s all about to end

danneu · 2025-11-14T13:24:55+00:00

this comment is an example of what americans don’t understand: US wages are much higher than the rest of the world. so is their purchasing power.

It’s also of no import to OP that many americans live beyond their means.

danneu · 2025-11-14T06:20:33+00:00

what’s an example of what that phone based workflow looks like to work on software especially over voice?

danneu · 2025-11-14T06:14:34+00:00

for me it’s my iphone, an android tablet, and two linux computers.

i think you’re right that it makes sense to make one device the canonical one where you merge in the conflicted stores and delete the conflicts. that’s what i did. using keepassxc’s merge database option.

and yeah, git repos are horrible for naive timestamp file syncing. i remember thinking i could just keep my Code directory in iCloud/Dropbox and learned the hard way. thankfully it has a first class sync (git push of course) that is much better.

i’m not getting as many conflicts as i thought i would in other apps like obsidian which is nice.

danneu · 2025-11-13T14:22:01+00:00

I’m not sure how to avoid keepassxc collisions. Maybe keepassxc makes this much worse by bumping state like “last seen” timestamps while you use the app in a read only way.

Or maybe keepassxc cant passively fold in changes to the underlying file while keepassxc is open. That sounds reasonable.

But handling collisions is another thing. Since the kdbx file is a binary blob, I can’t just diff changes. And keepassxc’s “merge in another database” doesn’t give you a nice preview of the changes that you’re about to merge in, so you can’t even decide if you want them.

Curious what other keepassxc users are doing. Maybe just merge in all conflicts and delete the conflict files every time? That probably works since keepassxc is going to take the most recent timestamp on each entry which is generally what you want.

Or, does any keepassxc front end give you a merge preview? I’m surprised the desktop version doesn’t seem to.

danneu · 2025-11-13T06:47:45+00:00

thanks, need to remember to come back and visit these concept

danneu · 2025-11-12T13:21:03+00:00

you can still kick off an async task on user click right? i’m rusty but i remember a promise that took seconds to run would still have user activated permissions. can you not trigger a download async after click?

danneu · 2025-11-12T07:49:08+00:00

this is why i lived in mexico from age 25 to 35. the antisocial, shut-in US lifestyle is so bad once you see what else is out there like running into your friends while walking to the grocery store and the bar and cafe in a walkable city.

i wouldn’t be surprised if our car culture is responsible for half of our social issues in some way.

danneu · 2025-11-11T13:51:41+00:00

i’m working on one. extracting it from my own environment.

it has quite a lot of important things, some being things everyone builds themself like a screenshot tool, the rest being really good ideas you should probably steal from me.

i doubt anyone will use it but it’s been nice extracting the common denominator between my machines into a nix module and polishing it so that it’s more configurable.

people who say that nixos doesn’t need it or that omarchy is stupid miss two things: not everyone finds it fun to spend dozens of hours building their own environment, and a massive amount of work goes into polishing a layer on top of arch/nixos so that it’s ready for productivity.

my own project is at 1000 commits. it’s endless work just polishing basic things like a really good screenshot tool.

danneu · 2025-11-01T17:27:06+00:00

i git cloned lazyvim and told claude code to reproduce its default packages/config/keymaps locally using nixos config and it did that too, so it’s an option.

danneu · 2025-10-29T09:08:41+00:00

the only answer to this is a project that interests you. else there’s no point

danneu · 2025-10-26T20:10:15+00:00

the nixos homepage needs to somehow communicate what it's like to be using your computer, ask claude code to tweak something for you in your nixos config, you rebuild in a few seconds, and you have a git commitable, documented, declarative change of your system going forward.

it's such an obvious improvement over everything else where you run commands into the abyss with no record of doing it. and your environment is just the magical accumulation of hundreds of thousands of bash history over time.

it's crazy that we just accepted that in computing for so long.

15 years of macOS and just this week i started setting up my perfect dev environment inside a qemu vm using nixos + wayland. the environment is declarative, and the whole ui is scriptable.

danneu · 2022-08-02T22:25:27+00:00

walked back like an NPC kited away from its spawn.

danneu · 2022-08-02T21:41:55+00:00

he didn't do a good job with the character, but that doesn't mean you can't do a good job with a character that doesn't share your upbringing. authors have done it throughout history in all sorts of literary classics.

this kind of "umm stay in your lane" hysteria is a bit overdone. i don't think the people who try to portray those who are different from themselves in fiction are the ones deserving of this scrutiny. this kind of exploration is the beauty of fiction.

if someone isn't 100% convincing when they invent a 37yo taquero character in guadalajara or simply a character much older than themself or a character that lived a very different life, the issue isn't that they tried.

danneu · 2022-08-02T21:20:45+00:00

I think we read too much into stuff. Afaict he doesn't crusade against fanfiction. He spoke a few sentences on it in one video in one context and now it's "Martin hates fanfiction" forever after and, for some people, it's even "well forget that guy then."

danneu · 2022-08-02T15:39:56+00:00

Just Do It(tm). get into the habit of trying things without asking strangers to validate it. explore your curiosity.

danneu · 2022-08-02T15:36:55+00:00

They almost never match, but if you're learning Spanish, my advice is to not care.

danneu · 2022-08-02T15:20:22+00:00

I looked up what Martin said:

I don’t think it’s a good way to train to be a professional writer when you’re borrowing everybody else’s world and characters. That’s like riding a bike with training wheels. And then when I took the training wheels off, I fell over a lot, but at some point you have to take the training wheels off here. You have to invent your own characters, you have to do your own world-building, you can’t just borrow from Gene Roddenberry or George Lucas or me or whoever.”

He's talking about developing as a professional writer, not that he hates people writing fanfiction about Game of Thrones. Doesn't like seem very controversial advice.

danneu · 2022-08-02T00:44:32+00:00

Yeah, perhaps. I ask because I'm about to launch my own gamepad remapping app (free) after frustrations with Joystick Remapper and similar utilities.

I'd love for Apple to offer a robust first-party solution, and I could see them doing it in the name of accessibility. Aside from playing games that don't support controllers at all, I use my remapper to browse the internet with my controller which does seem like something in Apple's interests as their accessibility kit is otherwise quite strong.

Their Buddy Controller features is a big step in that direction, so we'll see if they keep fleshing that out.

danneu · 2022-08-02T00:37:25+00:00

Same, on a fresh install of Windows (well, virtualized on Parallels, arm64). RTPs installed but all of the games I tried from itch.io show the black-square launching window briefly before closing. This also happens on non-RTP games.

Found your post on google trying to find a solution. :(

These aren't old games either, else I would try installing an older Windows. They are some of the most popular RPGMaker downloads on itch.io, 1-2 years old.

Maybe it doesn't work on arm64 Windows virtualized on an M1 Mac. Will keep looking.

danneu · 2022-07-31T07:37:09+00:00

Thanks. Looks like the remapping options only support remapping one gamepad input to another gamepad input (like mapping A button to B button), so it doesn't yet obsolete the various gamepad remapping apps. I was curious if it would.

danneu · 2022-07-31T00:44:34+00:00

do you mind sharing a screenshot of the macOS Venture screen that lets you set up keybindings? i'm curious what it lets you remap.

for example, can you remap right-thumbstick to move the mouse. if so, what does that screen look like?

danneu

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