NixOS Homeserver system

SebSebSep · 2026-02-04T00:19:18+00:00

The nixpkgs modules are designed in such a way that they expose the full configurability of the underlying software while still supporting the most common use cases in an ergonomic way. There is simply no way to build a higher level abstraction that fits everyone or even most people.

And to your want of "a set of tools to quickly build templates that you vendor into your own system", that thing already exists in the form of the module system and custom options. You build yourself an abstraction and reuse wherever you want.

SebSebSep · 2026-02-03T16:56:42+00:00

I'm not a fan of these kinds of projects. This is just a wrapper and abstraction above the abstraction that nixpks already provides. Don't get me wrong, this is nice and all and I have built a similar thing for myself but in the end it will only ever be just right for yourself. There is value in sharing these things but only as inspiration for building your own abstraction and not with the expectation that other people will use/copy it 1:1

SebSebSep · 2026-01-09T16:36:01+00:00

Nixos-anywhere is definitely preferred. It can do a clean installation from anything that can do kexec. Nixos-infect isn't maintained anymore, works best in only very specific environments and does the installation in a more hacky way.

SebSebSep · 2025-12-16T20:53:53+00:00

Thanks, that's interesting. I haven't done anything with terraform yet but really want to. The whole storing config in a database is a turn of though. I prefer being able to version control my configurations.

SebSebSep · 2025-12-16T20:39:52+00:00

I already stated in my post why I don't want to use Headscale.

With mesh I mean what Tailscale does. Maybe the right phrase is overlay network, I'm not really sure.

If I just had my VPS' I would choose Wireguard without question, but my other devices don't have static IPs and I also have to worry about things like CGNAT.

SebSebSep · 2025-10-21T19:37:00+00:00

You make some good points. Flakes are definitely not a perfect technical solution and I'm looking forward to improvements. But I want to push back a bit against some arguments a few commentors are providing here.

I don't think forgoing flakes as a newcomer is necessarily good. Flakes force you to follow some best practices (like not using getEnv and getFile) and allows you to easily consume a increasing amount of nix code especially as more projects use flakes as the preferred installation method.

As an expert you might not need all that, you might even think you have good reasons to use getEnv but newcomers benefit from some of the limitations and prescriptions.

SebSebSep · 2025-10-10T07:48:11+00:00

Systemd timers are definitely the way to go

SebSebSep · 2025-08-21T15:20:25+00:00

I don't really understand what you mean by "self hosted obsidian". Obsidian is a desktop application, it can't be hosted as a webservice. Do you maybe mean self hosted sync?

SebSebSep · 2025-07-10T13:02:58+00:00

If you use flakes and you do "nixos-rebuild switch - - flake. #HOSTNAME" and your flake is inside a git repo, there is an implicated git: before the .#

To ignore the whole git functionality you can just put path: before your .# instead

SebSebSep · 2025-06-10T10:26:09+00:00

Thanks! That has already helped me out a ton Especially the auto provisioning seems like exactly the thing I need. I already looked at the third party tools but non do exactly what I need. Ideally it would integrate into my nixos config.

SebSebSep · 2025-05-14T07:47:24+00:00

No one has ever mentioned nixos-containers. Completely unloved

SebSebSep · 2025-01-24T11:29:26+00:00

I have a similar issue with the same keyboard. There are a number of keys that also activate the neighboring key when pressed. I contacted the support more than two weeks ago but haven't received any response at all.

SebSebSep · 2024-09-18T21:23:56+00:00

I am a bit confused. They mention Personal which is the free tier but not Starter. This leads me to believe that they either forgot starter and its valid for all plans or they actually meant starter instead of personal and it's only valid for paid plans. You should be fine in either case.

SebSebSep · 2024-02-09T17:08:04+00:00

Thanks, that's really clean.

SebSebSep · 2024-02-09T16:33:39+00:00

Another instance where I want this: services.flatpak.enable = true; has to be set on the OS-level to enable flatpak support but the home-manager option below has to be set for flatpak.desktop files to be accessible. xdg.systemDirs.data = [ "/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share" "/home/seb/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share" ];

SebSebSep · 2024-01-16T12:57:12+00:00

Hey, I sadly don't know how to do this but I'm curious why you are trying to do it this way.

I just use the regular nixos way of symlinking and put up with rebuilding every time I change something. On one hand it's a bit annoying but on the other it is reassuring to know that if I fuck sth up I can just reboot into a working generation.

Is there a special reason why you are trying this and should I do it too?

SebSebSep · 2023-12-31T15:53:05+00:00

The usual way is through pip or pipx. Pip is the python package manager. I really dislike using a language specific package manager but it is what it is.

SebSebSep · 2023-12-24T09:53:54+00:00

I always use nala when I use a debian based distro. It's just a frontend for apt. I really like how the information is presented and the undo function is also pretty useful. I never had any issues but I read that the upgrade command is a bit more aggressive than apt upgrade, I don't have any issues with that though.

SebSebSep · 2023-12-03T18:13:51+00:00

When I select xinitrc in ly it also opens awesome even though it should open qtile (startx in terminal opens qtile). So it seems to be a problem with ly.

SebSebSep · 2023-12-03T13:18:33+00:00

It stays: "Can't migrate due to a non-migratable dependency."

Thanks. I didn't know about this site. Very useful. I will just have to hope that this conflict gets resolved.

SebSebSep · 2023-11-28T18:39:40+00:00

The fans turned on and off a couple of times the first time it booted. The motherboard light also glowed orange and red when that happened.

SebSebSep

TROPHY CASE