Please roast my NixOS Config

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1

Hi all,

In a similar vein to a previous post, I would be grateful if you guys would have a look at my NixOS config and let me know if there are improvements needed. I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed at the moment but love NixOS and use the unstable branch to make it ‘rolling’. I haven’t quite got my config 100% so I keep chickening out when I have a huge breakage and run back to Tumbleweed. Here’s the link
My NixOS Config

Thanks everyone

2

Well. if the config works for you and you’re happy with it, I’m happy with it. Depends to which standards you hold yourself when it comes to configuring your OS / digital infra. Some low-hanging fruit though:

  • You could use nixfmt to format the config and keep it consistent (or pkgs.nixfmt-tree for a convenient wrapper)
  • You could use nixtamal, npins or flakes to pin your nixpkgs instead of using the dated nix-channel system. This also allows you to commit a lockfile to your repo.
  • home.nix is usually referred to as a home-managerentrypoint, but in your case it’s just another nixos module, which is really confusing.
  • The packages.nix module is a bit all over the place and longwinded. What is used for what? Why are there seemingly duplicate entries (ffmpeg_7-full and ffmpeg_8-full, gimp3 and gimp3-with-plugins). Why are there loose libraries like freetype and SDL2? Not for nix-ld since you’re not using that…
  • Nit: this line could also be using modulesPath
  • this passage in sudo.nix is really impure and insecure (especially wheelNeedsPassword = false, well it depends on who can get a hold on your system and whether it’s exposed to the internet, but you just probably shouldn’t do this)

Thanks for having a go at nixos :slight_smile:

PS: if you’d want to use flakes, you’d have to change your autoUpgrade section to:

{
  system.autoUpgrade = {
    enable = true;
    flake = "path:/etc/nixos";
    dates = "20:00";
    randomizedDelaySec = "45min";
    flags = [ "--update-input" "nixpkgs" "--commit-lock-file" ];
  };
}
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