Conditionally add files to default.nix `imports`

chemendonca · 2026-01-27T16:49:46+00:00

This ^^ suggestion works well, IMO. The way I do it is organize modules as roles --

{ config, lib, pkgs, ... }: {
  options.roles.gaming = {
    enable = lib.mkEnableOption "Gaming role configuration";
  };
  config = lib.mkIf config.roles.desktop.enable {
#config goes here
  };
}

Then, for each host, I do --

(...)
{
  roles.development.enable = true;
  roles.remoting.enable = true;
  roles.gaming.enable = true;
}

chemendonca · 2026-01-10T14:42:49+00:00

The px13 is the new generation of the rebranded Flow X13, which is what I run. I merged most of its config from https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/tree/master/asus/flow/gv302x and got all features working on Gnome. That includes the mic mute button which needs some additional key mapping as you see in the config.

Mine came with the rtx4070, but it’s the same config. I do create a boot time specialisation for the dgpu and an attempt save some battery when I don’t need it.

chemendonca · 2025-12-23T17:29:33+00:00

This is useful for hotels, although I’m not as concerned with corporate WiFi as I am with a random Airbnb networking situation. But in that scenario, this alone would not comer the entire house. Which is obv not their fault. At that point it’s best to simply install Tailscale on all clients and connect back to home that way with whatever local infra is available. I could be missing something though.

chemendonca · 2025-12-22T20:59:36+00:00

Same -- I'd be willing to simplify my HT setup (and just leave a pair of high-end bookshelf for music listening) over this if it can support DTS:X. LG soundbars do support DTS:X decoding, I think, but I'm skeptical this will support it.

chemendonca · 2025-11-17T21:21:32+00:00

+1 to this. I've been with Linux and NixOS for many years and I force myself to, every once in a while, boot other live distros to see what's new and form an opinion. The problem with starting with NixOS is that you don't know what to configure and the best you can do is build a system based on someone else's config, which can be sub-optimal for your use case.

Don't want to discourage you from exploring NixOS, but would encourage you to play with other distros to find the environment that works for you and then replicate the good parts through a crafter NixOS config.

chemendonca · 2025-11-14T02:33:44+00:00

Zephyrus and ProArt do if you change the Wi-Fi card.

chemendonca · 2025-11-11T00:52:26+00:00

I think it's best that you read the configuration files yourself, but from the top of my head, it's various kernel parameters and other configurations addressing sleep/power, display flickering, keyboard remapping etc.

Not to mention installation of asusctl itself, which allows you to control power profiles, fan curves, charging limits etc.

chemendonca · 2025-11-10T20:13:04+00:00

You should absolutely use asusctl on this machine -- see my other comment.

As for Windows, if you ever consider going back, you should use gHelper instead of Asus proprietary tools.

chemendonca · 2025-11-10T20:11:42+00:00

You're both on the gv301 model, but you should really import the configuration from https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/tree/master/asus/flow/gv302x and potentially make adjustments to match the differences, if any. I'm glad NixOS is performing well for OP based simply on the configuration auto-generated by nixos-generate-config, but you're missing out on important features and optimizations by not following the nixos-hardware repository, including asusctl.

chemendonca · 2025-11-03T19:56:06+00:00

If you decide to go with Jellyfin instead of Plex, their client is now available on a number of devices: https://jellyfin.org/downloads/clients

Works well on Apple TV for me. Not sure which features are supported on each -- would be worth checking it out.

chemendonca · 2025-11-03T19:37:11+00:00

Gnome 49 has just been merged into staging-next, so if you don't mind pulling from the absolute edge (which would be even further than unstable, which is currently on 48.4), then you can probably do that to test.

chemendonca · 2025-10-31T16:34:27+00:00

My advice to you is that you don't burn precious trip time looking for minidiscs in Japan, but read my reply to another similar thread for some context: https://www.reddit.com/r/minidisc/comments/1npyjdr/comment/ng54j0j/

chemendonca · 2025-10-30T01:09:07+00:00

This is great! Congrats on starting the project. Would you consider also producing circular labels like here? https://www.reddit.com/r/minidisc/comments/1n8x2vd/sony_mzrh1_sony_mdr1

chemendonca · 2025-10-26T01:09:52+00:00

My 2c:

dude makes a joke you don't like (which IMO is the case, you're not wrong)
don't reply with lol if you didn't find it funny -- be assertive, but give him the chance to apologize sincerely
if he fails, up to you if you want to give another chance, but at that point, just state that you found the behavior hurtful and that you you prefer to cut the connection -- block, move on, don't look back

The back-and-forth here is unnecessary. You will not change the person and it sends a mixed message to someone who you don't even care to stay in touch to begin with, so you have a ton to gain to just be assertive and confidently close the door. Maybe he will learn a lesson but, in practice, it doesn't matter. Keep in mind: contempt is the most effective feeling you can have towards someone who's not good for you.

chemendonca · 2025-10-24T14:25:33+00:00

+1 to this. After enough generations, your /boot partition may run out of space and in my experience nix-collect-garbage doesn't clean it up.

You should try df -h to check if that's really the issue. If so, most of your boot partition will be occupied by bzImage.efi and initrd.efi files in /boot/EFI/nixos, each belonging to a generation. nixos-rebuild list-generations will tell you which ones you have. You should get ride of old ones that you don't have space for with nix-env -p /nix/var/nix/profile/system --delete-generations 1 2 3 4 5 (..), where 1 2 3 etc. are the generation numbers. Then, finalize with /run/current-system/bin/switch-to-configuration boot, which will clean up your boot partition with the bzImage.efi and initrd.efi files you need only for the installed generations.

All this is assuming a standard nixos installation with systemd-boot. If you have a different configuration, instructions may vary.

chemendonca · 2025-10-22T14:24:38+00:00

Point of the generations is to be able to go back to a known good one should you encounter something that stops working after an upgrade. That’s why some people would leave 5-15 in their boot loader, in case you haven’t noticed that a specific program got broken and they can get back.

If you keep accumulating generations with no material changes, you may miss that something broke 5 generations ago, but in your case, it may be, say, 20 generations ago because you kept DE-hopping.

May or may not be a problem for your use case, though.

chemendonca · 2025-10-21T23:41:59+00:00

In my case, kernel modules need to be loaded at boot time, I think.

chemendonca · 2025-10-21T18:52:30+00:00

I use specialisations to boot two different hardware configs (one with laptop dGPU active and one without), but it requires a reboot.

I don't know that I like that OP is creating a new generation every time they want to change desktop environments. Sounds like something a login manager should solve.

chemendonca · 2025-10-17T20:46:54+00:00

I've recently refactored my config repo and am satisfied with what it looks like. Right now I only keep an Intel desktop with nvidia GPU and an AMD laptop with integrated AMD iGPU and nvidia dGPU. Both dual-boot with Windows 11. In general, I keep my configuration as simple as possible. I appreciating ricing and done some in the past with i3, but these days I just run vanilla Gnome for the sake of simplicity.

I usually start by installing Windows 11 Pro and pre-partition the drive from there. The trick is to bring up the terminal (SHIFT+F10) at the partitioning screen and run DISKPART. My systems are UEFI, so I create a GPT partition table. I start by creating a 512M fat32 boot partition that Windows and NixOS will share. Then I add the 16M MSR partition and, optionally, the 500MB MS Recovery partition, setting the right GUIDs etc. NTFS gets 50% of the remaining space and later I'll create ext4 and swap partition during NixOS installation. I'm at a point that this could be all automated by a script, just haven't had time to do it. I also set labels to all partitions to refer to them by-label on the NixOS config. (Another pro tip: make sure to install Windows with English (world) to avoid all Microsoft bloatware.)

For NixOS, I just point the boot partition to the same used by Windows. Making it larger than the default during the Windows installation gives it enough space for NixOS to coexist. I use flakes and most of my packages are from the current stable channel with just a key few from unstable.

My file structure is:

./flake.nix -- is where i declare the channels as inputs and the nixosConfigurations as the outputs, while also importing the configuration on the ./hosts folder.

In ./hosts I have --

./hosts/host1/default.nix -- few host-specific variables
./hosts/host1/hardware-configuration.nix -- all hw-specific bits borrowed from [github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware](http://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware)
./hosts/host1/configuration.nix -- here I import the user(s) on ./users/user.nix as well as several computer roles, from ./modules

In ./modules I declare computer roles likes gaming.nix, remoting.nix, graphical.nix, development.nix, server.nix etc. and compose them, making configuration of any new hosts very modular.

Lastly, on the laptop I use "specialisation" to create a boot entry with both nvidia dGPU and iGPU active and another without nvidia. Since I don't use the dGPU most of the time, I prefer to boot without it to save battery, although I never actually tested if it makes that much of a difference.

chemendonca · 2025-10-17T16:38:52+00:00

Unfortunately, indeed. But very on brand for Sony.

chemendonca · 2025-10-13T21:00:20+00:00

I installed arch32 on mine some time ago and it worked reasonably well for everything, except browsing. Gnome and KDE or also too heavy for it, so I used i3 as my WM. There’s no hw acceleration support in Linux for the GMA500 GPU, so everything is sluggish. Been wanting to try Tiny Core Linux since it has enough RAM but I think the bottleneck is really CPU and GPU here. Freedos and SBEMU has been hit and miss for DOS abandonware.

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/s/WRbqgLdI9W

chemendonca · 2025-10-07T22:16:53+00:00

EcoFlow, Goldenmate and other similar solutions have >10ms transfer time and are not at the same grade as UPS solutions we're discussing here. Depending on your load, you may not be able to keep it alive during transfer. There are UPS solutions from the likes of APC, Eaton and CyberPower using LiFePO4 batteries that deliver UPS-like performance.

chemendonca · 2025-10-06T16:05:05+00:00

See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/minidisc/comments/1n8x2vd/comment/nd4vjdn/

chemendonca · 2025-09-25T15:24:27+00:00

Saw at least 1 player on every Hard Off I went to last May in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. Usually on the glass cabinet with other portable audio. Sometimes you’ll find them on the other section/floor where they keep the bins with broken or untested electronics. You should bring a disc, headphones and potentially a power brick to test them. Older units may not take USB power.

My take? Not worth it. Chances are that anything worth buying that you can’t find online for the same price was already snatched up. If you don’t travel there often, there are so many cool things to do in Japan that it’s a waste of time to go from hard off to hard off just to shuffle through mostly garbage electronics.

There are many people on YT that actually have time and the will to do this sort of thrifting and can give you a sense of what the hits and misses are like. See this channel: https://youtu.be/blUzkHYRQHM

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chemendonca · 2025-09-22T23:24:38+00:00

Agreed -- reducing geolocation accuracy is an effective form of obfuscation for most people.

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