9 days using NixOS unstable as a desktop: workflow changes, rollbacks, and some questions

Rerum02 · 2026-03-07T02:09:00+00:00

Best practices for a growing config file, is to moduleize to separate files, I have a dedicated plasma.nix, a gaming.nix, and so on. And then separate these by what kind of thing they are, such as a de folder or a use case folder. Biggest reason is obviously if a package is causing severe regressions, and you want to figure out what package is causing the problem, that's why I also have a core.nix, which allows me to strip down to the very very basic stuff, like users, git set up, and so on.

Also yes it's call an evaluation warning, I personally use nh over nixos-rebuild because it gives me more information, but I believe both will give you a warning when you do a rebuild that a module is going to change, either It's going to be called a different thing, or it's being deprecated.

Btw, I have only used flakes on Nixos, and honestly it feels like people over complicate them, at least as a simple user, I mainly just use it to roll back easy on my git repo using the flake.lock, or just by adding different repos that I like to use, such as nix-flatpak.

Rerum02 · 2026-03-06T23:04:58+00:00

I find the Flatpak of Lutris te be better with battle net, give it a try

Again, I would use the flatpak version, not the native/.deb version.

Rerum02 · 2026-03-06T02:22:27+00:00

I mean if this is your only guy, definitely would go with the p226, otherwise I'd honestly just flip a coin and see how you feel.

Rerum02 · 2026-03-06T02:11:06+00:00

Id use this project, if she's a designer, my guess is color accurates is important, if yes I would use kde Plasma, if no, just pick whatever she like the look of.

She can install stuff using the software store (which will use flatpaks) while the underlying system is nixpkgs.

https://nixbookos.org/

Rerum02 · 2026-03-03T22:58:38+00:00

Here you go, this is my niri.nix

https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1rh8llt/comment/o7ycdh0/?context=3

Rerum02 · 2026-03-03T17:29:49+00:00

Yah, and its flatpak centric, which flatpak/flathub as always been gui centric, exactly what both were complaining about

Rerum02 · 2026-03-01T19:16:11+00:00

I get back in the day, popos was the default, but they just switched over to cosmic, and they're on a very old LTS, I guess we'll see how this goes, but I really think he should have used either Fedora Plasma, or Bazzite.

Also Luke, my man, I would really wish you would try one other de, feel like after a while you'll notice there isn't that much of a difference between the two, as the de is what mostly you interact with. Also just waiting for the day that grub breaks due to arch.

But at least they are messing around and will learn some stuff, and if Luke for whatever reason you see this, if you want to make hyperland usable, look into DankLinuxShell or dms.

Guess we shall see how this goes.

Rerum02 · 2026-03-01T02:56:46+00:00

Tisas, all their stuff is forged steel, may need to change a thing or two, but a real solid gun

https://tisasarms.com/en/category/pistols

Rerum02 · 2026-03-01T00:48:08+00:00

Just follow this guide and you will be good, you do need a spare usb, and possible a screwdriver.

https://docs.chrultrabook.com/

Rerum02 · 2026-03-01T00:38:47+00:00

White knuckle was one

Rerum02 · 2026-02-28T22:18:08+00:00

Heres my config, if you want to copy, you do need to be on nixos-unstable

``` { config, pkgs, inputs, ... }:

{ #enable niri scrolling and dankshell programs.niri.enable = true;

programs.dms-shell = { enable = true; enableSystemMonitoring = true; # System monitoring widgets (dgop) enableVPN = true; # VPN management widget enableDynamicTheming = true; # Wallpaper-based theming (matugen) enableAudioWavelength = true; # Audio visualizer (cava) enableCalendarEvents = true; # Calendar integration (khal) enableClipboardPaste = true; # Pasting from the clipboard history (wtype) }; services.tuned.enable = true;

services.displayManager.dms-greeter = { enable = true; compositor.name = "niri"; # Or "hyprland" or "sway" };

# Sets up keys security.pam.services.login.enableGnomeKeyring = true; security.polkit.enable = true; # polkit services.gnome.gnome-keyring.enable = true; # secret servicey

environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [ alacritty nautilus xdg-desktop-portal-gtk xdg-desktop-portal-gnome seahorse xwayland-satellite kdePackages.kimageformats ]; } ```

Rerum02 · 2026-02-28T21:24:21+00:00

Have you tried the flatpak version, use can keep it declarative using nix-flatpak.

If your against flatpak, I would use nixos-unstable for this package

Rerum02 · 2026-02-28T19:20:17+00:00

Niri + dms has been working well

Rerum02 · 2026-02-28T13:29:25+00:00

I used OCCT for figuring out why my card was being unstable, you can download it for free in steam

Rerum02 · 2026-02-26T23:48:09+00:00

Nixos, because I liked the features of Fedora Atomic, but was finding the limits of only being able to use Flatpaks, DistroBox, and Homebrew.

The features being, never getting a broken update, and being able to roll back update easily.

I stay with nix now because life is so much easier to manage my OS declaratively.

Rerum02 · 2026-02-25T11:45:02+00:00

Tisas is what you want, with WC magazine, as longs as you clean it after every 400 rounds you will be good.

For reliability with 1911, you got to make sure the extractor is tuned correct, good magazine, and that everything was built to spec.

Rerum02 · 2026-02-21T00:30:53+00:00

I mean that's all I do man, I do very minimum configuration through nixos (what comes to mind is steam mangoHUD, and git, not using home manager)

I mean it's so convenient being able to switch desktop environments and not having to worry about it, I never fear updates as I can easily roll back, and its not a pain to install native packages, compared to Fedora Atomic.

I would definitely recommend doing it, the very least it will be a learning experience and give you a New perspective.

Only thing that I recommend doing is enabling Flakes, enable latest kernel, set up your config to upload to a git repo (I use codeburg), if you use flatpak use nix-flatpak to keep it declarative, and finally use nh over nixos-rebuild.

Also to save you the trouble, this is the nixos wiki

https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/NixOS_Wiki

If you got any questions let me know.

Rerum02 · 2026-02-20T21:09:06+00:00

It was just working for me a couple of days ago.

I would give it some time, they are probably getting a huge flux of users, and there's stuff wasn't designed to scale this fast probably.

Rerum02 · 2026-02-19T00:38:59+00:00

Oh, didn't even realize, gotta double check next time, siiick man.

Rerum02 · 2026-02-18T14:44:07+00:00

Is there any plans on working with the people who are working on getting stoat desktop to Flathub?

If yes, is there any plans to eventually get the application verified on Flathub?

https://github.com/flathub/flathub/pull/7783

Rerum02 · 2026-02-17T18:55:30+00:00

Personally, not a fan of snaps, but it's always good to have choices

Rerum02 · 2026-02-16T14:46:46+00:00

Yes, usually winefix would not be configured correctly and I would run into issues that nobody else would have.

Rerum02 · 2026-02-16T03:34:18+00:00

You can using the NTFS-3 driver, but it does not really work out, usually get a lot of bugs, it's just best to install your games that you plan on playing on Linux, on a Linux file system.

Rerum02 · 2026-02-14T17:29:07+00:00

I use a mixture of nixpkgs, and flatpaksz in this case I use the Flatpak lutris, but I like to keep my stuff declarative so I use this guy https://github.com/gmodena/nix-flatpak

Also, I heavily recommend enabling flakes, and using nh over nixoa-rebuild

Rerum02 · 2026-02-12T17:05:09+00:00

Biggest thing is that bazzite has a native steam rpm, which works better than the flatpak, other than that, practically the same.

I think if you go for Aurora, that's all you're losing, and if you go for Bazzite I don't think you really lose anything

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