Building window manager on non-NixOS Linux

bbarker · August 6, 2024, 11:57am

I’ve been having an interesting time trying to get my window manager build ported from NixOS to other Linux systems using Nix:

github.com

bbarker/dotpenrose/blob/5a540193505b26af9ce0bb99081e22bd3b858439/flake.nix

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-24.05";
    flake-utils.url = "github:numtide/flake-utils";
    rust-overlay.url = "github:oxalica/rust-overlay";
  };
  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, flake-utils, rust-overlay }:
    flake-utils.lib.eachDefaultSystem
      (system:
        let
          overlays = [ (import rust-overlay) ];
          pkgs = import nixpkgs {
            inherit system overlays;
          };
          isNixOS = pkgs.lib.hasPrefix "nixos" pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.system;
        in
        with pkgs;
        {
          formatter = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.x86_64-linux.nixpkgs-fmt;
          devShells.default = mkShell {

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Currently I was looking at nixGL to fix build-time linking issues for OpenGL (EGL) libraries, etc, but haven’t been able to get that working as yet. What do folks suggest in general at this point in time?

One valid option might be: don’t use Nix on non-NixOS, for most graphical applications.

waffle8946 · August 6, 2024, 2:29pm

That’s what I landed on, after attempting to use nix on Arch for months. NixGL is somehow inadequate - very hit-or-miss depending on the app. You can still give it a try though and see if it works for you.

nix run github:nix-community/nixGL#nixGLIntel -- <program> should “just work” in many cases. (Replace <program> and possibly nixGLIntel as needed)