Bspwm & sxhkd not work

Help
1

I’m using VirtualBox to run NixOS. My configuration.nix file for installing bspwm and sxhkd is as the following

  services.xserver = {
     enable = true;
     autorun = false;
     layout = "us";
     xkbOptions = "eurosign:e";
     displayManager.defaultSession = "none+bspwm";
     windowManager.bspwm.enable = true;
     windowManager.bspwm.configFile = builtins.getEnv "HOME" + "/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc";
     windowManager.bspwm.sxhkd.configFile = builtins.getEnv "HOME" + "/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc";
     desktopManager.xterm.enable = false;
  };

bspwmrc and sxhkdrc are config files I’m using in Archlinux without any problem.

In tty, I issue the following command to start X
sudo systemctl start display-manager
The following login screen is displayed

2020.07.22_21:58:25_-_nix_Running__Oracle_VM_VirtualBox
2020.07.22_21:58:25_-_nix_Running__Oracle_VM_VirtualBox842×639 27 KB

After inputting login info, all I got is a blank screen. I tried pressing Windows key + Return, which is my config in sxhkd to open a new Terminal window, but nothing shows up

2020.07.22_21:58:41_-_nix_Running__Oracle_VM_VirtualBox
2020.07.22_21:58:41_-_nix_Running__Oracle_VM_VirtualBox858×650 18.7 KB

Could you please point out where I’m wrong?

2

Have you checked versions from each repository and documentation/changelog if your config might contain stuff that is not allowed yet/anymore in the nix version?

3 
     windowManager.bspwm.configFile = builtins.getEnv "HOME" + "/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc";
     windowManager.bspwm.sxhkd.configFile = builtins.getEnv "HOME" + "/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc";

It’s worth mentioning that these configurations don’t copy thee configuration file into the VM, they’re treated as strings, without any other meaning. Further $HOME/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc is the default when nothing is specified. Perhaps you need to copy these files into the VM and/or remove these values from your configuration.

4

Many thanks. I removed those 2 lines and it works!

I actually have these files at these locations but I don’t understand why NixOS doesn’t read them.

Supposed that I want to place these files at $HOME/.config/bspwmrc and $HOME/.config/sxhkdrc (non-default locations), how should I config these locations for windowManager.bspwm.configFile and windowManager.bspwm.sxhkd.configFile?

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5

From looking at the code implementing those modules (https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/6ca121a4793ced5279e26f0d51c2d08bf21799a3/nixos/modules/services/x11/window-managers/bspwm.nix). It seems to any configuration done there becomes an argument to bspwm when run. It’s run in a shell, under the user’s profile. Perhaps the string $HOME/.config/bspwmrc without the builtins.getEnv would work.

6

If I use a string like "$HOME/.config/bspwmrc", when I run sudo nixos-rebuild switch, I got the following error

The option value 'services.xserver.windowManager.bspwm.sxhkd.configFile" in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix' is not of type 'null or path'.

How can I make a path that includes $HOME environment? I tried with builtins.getEnv but obviously, NixOS can’t use these config files.

7

Ah, dang. What you want is not possible from the bspwm module and configuration.nix. Perhaps home manager is the solution to this?

To directly answer your question: You can’t have a path with an environment variable in it (to my knowledge).

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