Consider this minimal configuration.nix file:
{ config, pkgs, ... }:
{
imports = [
/etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix
];
boot.loader.systemd-boot.enable = true;
boot.loader.efi.canTouchEfiVariables = true;
boot.initrd.luks.devices."luks-cb0ef3ca-374c-40a8-98cb-cd48d2e6ff2f".device =
"/dev/disk/by-uuid/cb0ef3ca-374c-40a8-98cb-cd48d2e6ff2f";
networking.networkmanager.enable = true;
users.users.bisect = {
isNormalUser = true;
};
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
waybar
];
programs.sway = {
enable = true;
};
system.stateVersion = "23.11";
}
If I activate it using nixos-rebuild switch, reboot, login as user “bisect”, run sway, press Ctrl+Enter to get a graphical terminal, and run waybar there, waybar starts just fine.
If however, I add these two lines, as recommended here
services.pipewire.enable = false;
services.pulseaudio.enable = true;
Running waybar works fine, as long as I do it approx. 30 seconds after sway starts. If I run waybar earlier, it won’t show up and this is printed to stdout/stderr:
[bisect@nixos:~]$ waybar
[2025-05-30 11:53:57.576] [info] Using configuration file /nix/store/l2aw7jhndlv442d6gnnz910mlvvk0x6b-waybar-0.12.0/etc/xdg/waybar/config.jsonc
[2025-05-30 11:54:22.612] [error] Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop: Timeout was reached
After some debugging, I noticed that the timeframe where running waybar won’t work, matches exactly with the timeframe where
busctl --user call org.freedesktop.DBus /org/freedesktop/DBus org.freedesktop.DBus NameHasOwner s org.freedesktop.portal.Desktop
prints b false. I don’t know what to do with that information though.