# Launching applications installed through home-manager
**URL:** https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299
**Category:** Help
**Created:** [December 15, 2025, 11:51pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299 "2025-12-15T23:51:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pancake153](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/pancake153)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2025, 11:51pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/1 "2025-12-15T23:51:52Z")
Hi,
I’m using (single-user-install) nix and home-manager on Fedora 43 with KDE. It works great for the most part, except that installed applications do not get correctly picked up by the KDE application launcher. I notice a few issues:
1. I have to run “update-desktop-database” after installing apps. Otherwise they do not appear in the launcher. The NIX paths appear correctly in $XDG\_DATA\_DIRS.
2. I have to manually give execute access (chmod u+x) to the corresponding .desktop files, otherwise the launcher complains it doesn’t have the right permissions.
3. The above seems to fix some applications, although I noticed Zoom coredumps when executed through the launcher (invalid Elf handle?) but works when executed from the command line. I don’t know how to start debugging this issue.
My question then, what is the correct way to integrate nix-managed applications with the KDE environment? I’ve found two options that seem relevant (xdg.enable and xdg.mime.enable), but they don’t seem to help.
Any suggestions much appreciated – and thanks!
---
### Author:  [@NobbZ](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/NobbZ)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2025, 6:19am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/2 "2025-12-16T06:19:22Z")
As a rule of thumb, you shouldn’t use graphical applications from nixpkgs on a regular Linux, here the way how nixpkgs deals with some dependencies is incompatible with how regular Linuxes deal with them.
For simple apps it might work, though for more complex ones or OpenGL apps it _will_ break.
Tools like NixGL exist for this reason, though this introduces a different set of problems.
---
### Author:  [@ikhlasulov](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/ikhlasulov)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2025, 9:03am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/3 "2025-12-16T09:03:20Z")
The KDE launcher doesn’t automatically pick up Nix-installed applications because the desktop entries aren’t correctly integrated into your environment.
To fix this, add the following to your `home.nix`:
```nix
xdg = {
enable = true;
mime.enable = true;
};
```
If you still have to manually `chmod` the `.desktop` files, also add this `home.activation` script:
```nix
home.activation.fixDesktopPermissions = lib.hm.dag.entryAfter ["writeBoundary"] ''
chmod +x ~/.nix-profile/share/applications/*.desktop
'';
```
After adding this, run `home-manager switch` and **fully log out and log back in**. This should solve it.
---
### Author:  [@jhakonen](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/jhakonen)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2025, 9:46am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/4 "2025-12-16T09:46:55Z")
I have this nix-script to deal with the issue in Kubuntu 24.04 (KDE 5.27):
```nix
# Make programs installed via this config file have their desktop entries
# appear in KDE's application launcher
# Source: https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/issues/1439#issuecomment-1106208294,
# but use a folder where desktop files do not have to be in a subfolder, as KDE's launcher
# does not seem to find files from there
{ config, lib, ... }:
{
home.activation.linkDesktopApplications = {
after = [
"writeBoundary"
"createXdgUserDirectories"
];
before = [];
data = ''
rm -rf ${config.xdg.dataHome}/nix-desktop-files/applications
mkdir -p ${config.xdg.dataHome}/nix-desktop-files/applications
cp -Lr ${config.home.homeDirectory}/.nix-profile/share/applications/* ${config.xdg.dataHome}/nix-desktop-files/applications/
'';
};
xdg.enable = true;
xdg.systemDirs.data = ["${config.xdg.dataHome}/nix-desktop-files"];
}
```
However, see the link in comment. There might be better way to fix this nowadays.
---
### Author:  [@jhakonen](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/jhakonen)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2025, 10:06am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/5 "2025-12-16T10:06:33Z")
Home Manager has new way for dealing with GPU support, which doesn’t involve NixGL. If you have [targets.genericLinux.gpu.enable](https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/options.xhtml#opt-targets.genericLinux.gpu.enable) enabled Home Manager prints a command that sets up the GPU support for you:
```auto
$ home-manager switch
...
GPU drivers require an update, run
sudo /nix/store/5sjdg6splbilwhvfxkkjppggvxqnp38n-non-nixos-gpu/bin/non-nixos-gpu-setup
```
Fore more info, see: [init: targets.genericLinux.gpu module by exzombie · Pull Request #8057 · nix-community/home-manager · GitHub](https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/pull/8057)
---
### Author:  [@NobbZ](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/NobbZ)
#### Post date: [December 16, 2025, 11:19am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/6 "2025-12-16T11:19:12Z")
Thank you, I have to take a look, that might simplify my current neovide setup.
Still I try to avoid doing graphical stuff, due to the historical problems it made and might continue to make.
Anyway, the ZOOM thing is barely fixable without logs, and I do not know how to access them if the problem only exists when started through the launcher, but not when started from a terminal.
---
### Author:  [@voland62](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/voland62)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2026, 6:47am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/7 "2026-04-21T06:47:27Z")
Works!
We need the same for audio. Now, all Linux pipewire clients (Ardour, REAPER, zrythm…) use jack-pipewire emulation to connect to audio (we could ALSA, but it blocks soundcard). But it is impossible to connect to Ubuntu’s pipewire-jack, with nix(non-Nixos) jack clients: pw-jack ardour will fail. It is because backand(apt) and fronted(nix) use different libjack.so.0 libs.
---
### Author:  [@voland62](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/voland62)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2026, 3:16pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/8 "2026-05-25T15:16:49Z")
[Workaround](https://nixos.wiki/wiki/JACK#Connecting_nix_JACK_clients_to_Pipewire_installed_via_other_package_managers)
---
### Author:  [@waffle8946](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/waffle8946)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2026, 7:30pm UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/9 "2026-05-25T19:30:20Z")
Wrong wiki, and that is a cursed workaround.
---
### Author:  [@sehe](https://discourse.nixos.org/u/sehe)
#### Post date: [October 9, 2026, 1:28am UTC](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/launching-applications-installed-through-home-manager/73299/10 "2026-10-09T01:28:50Z")
Awesome, to the point and works like a charm.