This repository contains my personal (and work) NixOS configuration.
-
Build the system and switch
nh os switch -
Build the system, make it the new default, but don't switch to it yet (only at the next restart)
nh os boot -
Remove old generations (keey at least N)
nh clean keep N
-
Update all flake inputs
nix flake update -
Update only a single flake input
nix flake lock --update-input <name1> --update-input <name2> ...
- Run a specific program
nix shell nixpkgs#my-program-to-run
To build a bootable ISO from specific system configuration it must exist
in the flake outputs (e.g. packages.x86_64-linux.dellIso). It also requires
a special installer module to be imported in the system configuration. It
is kept commented in the configuration,
because otherwise it messes up normal system building. Once its uncommented
the target can be built like any standard item from a flake, i.e.
nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.dellIso
It will create a result directory with iso in it, that will contain the
image file. It can be copied to a USB drive with the dd command, e.g.
sudo dd if=./result/iso/<the generated name>.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync
Note: The device must be provided as the output (e.g. sda) and not a partition (i.e. sda1,
sda2, etc.). The ISO already contains the entire partition scheme with a proper boot partition.
You can verify the result with lsblk, you should see something like this:
❯ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 1 29.3G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 1 4.4G 0 part
└─sda2 8:2 1 3M 0 part
If you don't see sda1 and sda2 partitions then the ISO image is not correct.
I use the installation-cd-graphical-base.nix installer, while many articles suggest
to use installation-cd-minimal.nix. Both should work. I tried iso-image.nix, but
it generated an incorrect ISO that I couldn't boot from the USB drive.