Fully configurable desktop environment

orangutanklaus · August 5, 2021, 9:14am

Hi,
I wonder how far NixOS is able to configure a desktop environment, especially interested in XFCE. I tried Nixos and was stuck configuring XFCE via Nixos and had the impression that this is not really possible for setting HiDPI like mentioned in Arch Wiki (HiDPI - ArchWiki). Apart from that it seemed difficult to create desktop-files from configuration.
Is there someone that has XFCE fully configured from NixOS?
Are there other desktop environments or window managers that are fully configurable from NixOS? Never really tried i3 but it seems it is more configurable from files than XFCE…

Thanks!

Update:
Other configurations I need in XFCE are keyboard shortcuts,application shortcuts, themeing…

nixinator · August 5, 2021, 10:44am

you may have joy with home manager, GitHub - nix-community/home-manager: Manage a user environment using Nix [maintainer=@rycee]

if these setting are more ‘system orientated’, it’s possible to write almost any configuration file via a nix derivation, if the original ‘module’ doesn’t expose the setting you want via handy to set switches.

github.com

stanipintjuk/immutable-rice/blob/5c387b482e4069e0b5d9e5d305e9f953f9858118/rice.nix

{ pkgs, config, ... }:

# NOTE: Change the configuration.nix file to match your system
# ANOTHER NOTE: Conky configuration will not work if you don't have 8 cpus
with import ./configuration.nix;
let 
  # Change this variable to a configurations file with your prefered i3 keymaps.
  # That file must only contain your keymaps and nothing else.
  i3-keys = 
    builtins.readFile i3-keys-path;

  urxvt = import ./urxvt/urxvt.nix { inherit pkgs; }; 
  rofi = import ./rofi/rofi.nix { inherit pkgs; terminal = urxvt; };
  conky = import ./conky/conky.nix { inherit pkgs; };
  wallpaper = pkgs.copyPathToStore ./art/the-technomancer.png;

  i3-config = 
    import ./i3wm/i3config.nix {
      config-extra = i3-config-extra;
      terminal = urxvt;

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may give you some idea’s…

users needs from setting advanced switches in unix subsystems, usually feed back into enhancements to the configuration module for that service, so to avoid nix files just writing ‘raw configuration files’…which is basically the whole premise of devops tools.