I know three languages(Lua, Python and rust), which I know isn't a lot but at this point in my journey it's very easy to learn a new one. But nix just escapes my grasp, there are so many weird things and the documentation is so horrible. The complex packages like VSCode fhs and the fhs that wraps other packaged are insanely confusing and then there's complex flakes which have tests and have them run a vm. And then it just stops working and it spews forth a unreadable error message that makes you want to clamp your balls in a vise. Not to mention dentritic pattern with all It's helper flakes that have god awful documentation so you just end up reading the source which is incomprehensible.

Maybe it's just because I am not used to functional programming.

Nevertheless I am still going to keep using NixOS and with each year that passes I will understand more.

The original reason I got into Linux was because I was forced to reinstall Windows after an update broke my system. And while I knew nothing about Linux, or NixOS, at that time; that impetus inevitably led me to appreciate reproducibility.

Now I can finally say, after 3 months of configuring, ricing, and testing - I’m at the point of being able to reinstall my NixOS setup from the minimal ISO, using a single command.

I’m fortunate enough to have an old laptop from work to actually test everything on bare metal, rather than relying solely on results from a VM. And after some trial and error, I have to say that it really feels like magic to just have everything set up, with minimal effort.

None of this is to say I’ve got the best setup or the coolest rice. This is just me appreciating all the work that went in to create such an amazing OS.

Thank you, NixOS for my first 100 days of pure enjoyment, and absolutely everything else.

Six months ago I posted here about the NixOS setup I built for the 30-PC computer lab where I teach.

At the time, it worked well for me, but it was still very much my setup: tied to one lab, one network, and a lot of assumptions I had accumulated along the way.

Since then I've been trying to turn it into something other people could actually install, understand, and maintain.

Today I released Nixorium 2.1.

The idea is still simple:

• one NixOS machine acts as the controller
• the lab is described declaratively
• clients can be installed and updated over the LAN
• only the controller needs Internet access
• applications still run locally on each PC
• student environments return to a clean state between lessons
• machines can be replaced and brought back to the same configuration

A lot of the work since my original post has been on the less exciting parts: separating private site configuration from the reusable framework, safer installation flows, recovery from interrupted operations, backups, diagnostics, VM-based release validation, CI, and documentation.

I also made a short 1-minute explainer, because describing this only in Nix terminology makes it sound more complicated than it is:

https://nixorium.org/

The source is here:

https://github.com/giovantenne/nixorium

One caveat I want to be clear about: Nixorium grew out of a real 30-PC lab, and I test releases in VMs, but hardware is hardware. Different firmware, NICs, switches and disk layouts can still expose things that virtual testing won't.

So now I'm especially interested in real-world feedback.

If you run a homelab, classroom, training room, makerspace, or just have a couple of disposable machines around, I'd be very interested to hear:

• what would stop you from trying this?
• which parts of the deployment/recovery story still feel unclear?
• what would you want to see before trusting it on real hardware?

And if anyone actually tries it on hardware different from mine, even a failed attempt would be genuinely useful feedback.

For context, this was my original post from six months ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/1rqtu0j/i_built_a_reproducible_nixos_deployment_system/

-----

EDIT:

A lot of Nixorium is basically an attempt to automate and simplify the workflow I originally did by hand. If you're curious about where it started, the old v1 README from six months ago describes that setup and the manual steps much more directly:

https://github.com/giovantenne/nixorium/tree/11b87a9ca185b0d2a0f2f32bdd342dfba0677d55

Hi folks!

I love the Nix + ZFS combo and I run >10 of my machines on it. My friend is also fan of ZFS and we both have a NAS. We wanted to use each other's machines to do remote backups in a safe but simple way (zfs send | zfs receive and plain SSH). However, without giving each other any insight into what runs on the other machine and without being able to see what that other person has, not even metadata about other datasets.

I wrote about it in this blog post, the repo is here gh:basnijholt/zfs-tenant, and the docs are here.

Quick start on NixOS from the docs:

Add the flake to the host:

```nix { inputs.zfs-tenant.url = "github:basnijholt/zfs-tenant";

outputs = { nixpkgs, zfs-tenant, ... }: { nixosConfigurations.nas = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem { system = "x86_64-linux"; modules = [ zfs-tenant.nixosModules.host ./configuration.nix ]; }; }; } ```

On the host, give friend a tenant root:

nix services.zfs-tenant = { enable = true; tenants.joe = { dataset = "tank/friends/joe"; quota = "2T"; authorizedKeys = [ "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAA... joe-nas" ]; allowedFrom = [ "100.64.0.12" ]; # Joe's tailnet address }; };

Disclaimer: I used AI to help me build it but I have high confidence on correctness, my security reviews went deep and even found a RCE in Synoid.

I’m using Hyprland and the Kitty terminal

Apologies for the basic question. I’m not a very Linux savvy person, but I had a brief foray into it last year. I forgot what my password was and I’ve forgotten basically everything since then, including how to open the terminal to change the password. I need to use my computer for a class, and I’ve been desperately googling for an hour to no avail. I swear I remember it being super easy, but I can’t find the keybind anywhere. Please help. And for proof that I’m not some thief trying to hack into someone else’s computer, you can search “NixOS” in my post history

France and Netherland's decision on Nixos based own distros.

Does someone knows the repo for the animated logo in the video please?
Original video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdriK38Jp8N/?stkn=YnQ4NTllOWJ5MTJs

Hello! I recently hopped onto NixOS and have been running 26.05 stable release since. I wanted to hop onto the unstable release for the latest versions of my apps but asking around (claude) it appears not to be advisable on my system because rn I'm on a laptop with a dual gpu (intel uhd and rtx 1060) and my nvidia card runs on legacy drivers that will break when the current kernel stops supporting them.

Is claude being truthful or did it eat magic mushrooms? Is being on the unstable release worth it?

Also since when is a 1060 considered legacy??? this card still rock pretty hard.

PS: Any tips willing to give a new cult... emmm community member?

A version-controlled NixOS configuration is an important recovery asset, but rebuilding the declared system is not the same as restoring the machine. Hardware-specific files, boot setup, secrets, persistent application data, database state, imperatively installed items, and inputs that are no longer available can all sit outside the apparent source of truth. A configuration that still evaluates may also produce a system that cannot reach the network or unlock its storage.

A realistic drill could start from blank media or a disposable VM, recreate partitions and encryption, restore the flake or configuration and pinned inputs, supply secrets through the intended path, rebuild, and then restore stateful data separately. The result would need checks for boot, networking, users and SSH access, mounts, timers, containers or virtual machines, application health, monitoring, and another reboot. The drill should also identify every manual step that was not represented declaratively.

What do you include in a NixOS recovery test? How do you distinguish configuration backup from data and secret backup, and what evidence tells you the machine can be rebuilt after the original disk and cache are both gone?

Basically the title. I have no idea why this is happening. It happened after a fresh install. Any help is welcomed. Thanks.

Why is this? Im on unstable

Is there some difference between:

programs.great_program.enable = true;

configuration.packages = [

pkgs.grear_program

]

Hi,

My last update on nixos failed. I use a simple gnome setup with flakes, pointing to the 26.05 stable release. With last update, After boot splash, I'm stuck on a blinking cursor, GDM does not launch. I can switch to another virtual terminal, reboot the machine, and boot on the last functional generations (thank you nixos!). But I don't know how to investigate the problem. I think it may be related to the last systemd update. Anyone experience the same problem? Any fix found?

My last functional generation was generated with "nh os boot --update" yesterday.

Solved: do not use unstable mesa on stable release :)

Llevo 3 días con esto y ya no sé qué más probar.

Uso NixOS con flakes, boot.initrd.systemd.enable = true, root en tmpfs con impermanence y /persist en ZFS con cifrado nativo, desbloqueado por TPM2 con systemd-cryptenroll.

El problema: sops-nix intenta leer la age key de /persist antes de que el dataset esté montado, y encima el PCR 7 cambia con cada actualización de firmware, así que el TPM2 deja de desbloquear y me cae en el emergency shell.

Ya descarté un problema de ZFS porque, como está en el kernel mainline, no debería haber incompatibilidades con mi kernel parcheado con linux-hardened.

Probé la misma config en Gentoo con OpenRC y funciona perfecto, pero no pienso volver a eso.

¿Alguien lo ha resuelto sin usar Secure Boot con claves propias? Ya me estoy planteando que la solución real es instalar Arch. 😔

https://x.com/venRuN0w/status/2105295130819252275

Most of it just people adding new packages and maintainers not having time to review it

I went used the minimal ISO to check it out for the first time after about 2 months of Linux with only arch as my experience

so far I just fell in love!

Nothing special yet, just set up my drive encryption, auto login and basic Sway / waybar config and a few basic things I needed.

But I just love this way of editing my system!

10/10, Thinkpad stays NixOS!

will install it on the internal soon instead of just on a 120gb external ssd.

Have a great day ! ❤️

I'm willing to get into the nitty gritty, but before throwing myself at the documentation, anyone running this? Is that even possible? Would like to spend my weekend on setting this up on a spare Handheld.

My GPU is idling at 30-50 Watts in nixos, while just using 4-5 Watts in CachyOS.

Any help?

Thanks in advance :)

my config repo

I’ve been using NixOS for a month or so and every game I’ve played ends up freezing and crashing soon after. I have installed NVIDIA drivers and every game, including steam games that use proton, runs smoothly but not for long (most of the times).

I really can’t figure out what the problem could be and it’s annoying smh.

EDIT: i have an RTX5050 nvidia GPU along with a core i9, then looking at the comments i enabled zramSwap and tried using LD_PRELOAD="" %COMMAND% on steam config, I also set boot.kernel.sysctl to 2147483642.
My assumption at this point is the game that has this problem, and that is Minecraft Dungeons 2, AND YES I'M AWARE THAT THE GAME CAME OUT 2 DAYS AGO AND STILL HAS PROBLEMS.

I recently upgraded my NixOS system (on unstable) to find all sound/audio missing. I'm using a desktop system with speakers and pipewire. Pwvucontrol (and qpwgraph) only show "dummy output". Rolling back does fix it, but this is not a long-term solution. Alsamixer looks like this both on rollback and upgrade.

Running sudo lspci -nnk | grep -A3 -i audio yields no output, which leads me to think my sound card is no longer being recognized. Granted that doesn't print anything on rollback, either.

This is where I'm a little unfamiliar with how computer hardware handles audio. Do GPUs handle audio? (I don't think they do.) I have an old GPU: an AMD Radeon RX 550 / 550 Series from 2017.

Running sudo dmesg -Tx | grep ERROR yields:

kern :err : [Wed Sep 30 08:29:55 2026] amdgpu 0000:01:00.0: amdgpu: [drm] *ERROR* Unsupported screen format RA24 little-endian (0x34324152)

several times. But is "screen format" relevant in this situation? We're talking audio.

If anyone has any ideas or further bread-and-butter audio commands to run, I'd love to hear them.

I use NixOS Unstable mostly for all stuff, but DaVinci Resolve is coming from NixOS Stable just to fix this issue. But after Nix Flake Update it still rebuilds everything. Any way to prevent that?

Here's my config - https://github.com/SeniorMatt/nixos

previously i used stylix for system wide fonts and colors. but after switching to hjem ( from homemanager) i cant theme hjem aspects config apps with stylix. so i did a workaround, copied the catpuchhin(for now) color palets and make a theme.nix config and in every apps put let in attr with color variable which is time consuming and frustrating. and even made some app look like shi. so is there any alternative easy way like with stylix for theming and fonts. (its flake has import-tree)