.files

These are my dotfiles. Take anything you want, but at your own risk.

It targets a macOS systems, but some of it should work on *nix as well.

Install

1. Use the official Nix installer for macOS: https://nixos.org/download.html#nix-install-macos

2. Follow Flakes install steps for nix-darwin: https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin

3. Another great resource is: https://nixcademy.com/2024/01/15/nix-on-macos/

4. Get my dotfiles and link them to places where they are used:

$ git clone https://github.com/zupo/dotfiles.git ~/.dotfiles
$ ln -sv ~/.dotfiles/vscode ~/Library/Application\ Support/Code/User
$ echo 'machine niteo.cachix.org password <CACHIX AUTH TOKEN>' >> ~/.config/nix/netrc

1. Create a secrets.nix file in your .dotfiles directory:

{
  email = "[email protected]";
  github = {
    token = "secret";
  };
}

1. nix-channels are implicit and bad, so I remove them and instead use flakes to pin to exact nixpkgs commit hashes:

$ rm ~/.nix-channels
$ rm ~/.nix-defexpr/channels
$ rm ~/.nixpkgs/

1. What to do with /etc/zshrc and /etc/zprofile?

MacOS comes with the following:

• /etc/zprofile
• /etc/zshrc
• /etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal

/etc/zprofile

I don't use it because it only provides load /usr/libexec/path_helper which is slow and not needed.

Also, LnL7/nix-darwin#532.

/etc/zshrc_Apple_Terminal

I don't use it because it only provides two features I don't need:

• emacs support,
• automatic history save/restore -> I prefer to use a shared history.

/etc/zshrc

I override this one with my personal settings using flake.nix

Final result

In the end, the /etc folder should be like this:

/etc ➜ ls -l z
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  20 Sep 14 18:17 zprofile -> /etc/static/zprofile
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  18 Apr  7  2020 zshenv -> /etc/static/zshenv
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  17 Sep 20 11:30 zshrc -> /etc/static/zshrc

Related: LnL7/nix-darwin#193

Updating

To update to the latest release in the currently used channel, run nix flake update followed by nixre.

When a new nixpkgs channel is released, do the following:

• update the nixpkgs.url input in flake.nix to the new channel
• run darwin-rebuild check --flake ~/.dotfiles#zbook
• run nixre

Troubleshooting

Problem with the SSL CA cert (path? access rights?)

If you see this error when trying to reinstall, follow https://discourse.nixos.org/t/ssl-ca-cert-error-on-macos/31171/5.

Additional resources

• Getting started with dotfiles
• @webpro's dotfiles
• Dotfiles community.
• Awesome Dotfiles