Nix / NixOS

I experimented with several ways to run my services:

1. "regular" systemd services (services.glance = { ... };)
2. nix containers (containers.glance = { ... };)
3. podman containers (virtualisation.oci-containers.containers.glance = { ... })

and I must say I'm starting to appreciate the last option (the least nixos-y) more and more.

Specifically, I appreciate that:

• I just have to learn the app/container configuration, instead of also backwards-translating from their config into the various nixos options (of course the .yaml or whatever configuration files are still generated from my nixos config, I just do that in a derivation instead on relying on a module doing it for me)
• Services are sometimes outdated in nixpks (even in unstable - and juggling packages between stable and unstable is yet another complication)
• I feel like it's more secure (very arguable and also of very little consequence since everything is on my homelab... it's mainly for the warm fuzzies)

Do you guys use one of the options above? Something different?

This is a group chat to discuss anything nix-related

I've been trying nixos recently and after watching a bunch of tutorials from various people, I have managed to enable home-manager and flakes.

My question is: where should I write the packages I want to install? In home.nix? In flakes.nix? In configuration.nix (probably not)? I'm probably only gonna have a single user on this machine.

So far, I think the only difference between writing the packages in home.nix compared to flakes.nix is that in the 1st senario, the apps will only be available for the user, while in the 2nd, it will be available for the whole system. Also, I could use the home.nix for non-nixos systems too. Other than that, I can probably write them the same way either on home.nix or flakes.nix and have the same result on my machine.

PS. On search.nixos.org there is an option to search for flakes. What is this? I am planing to get my packages from the packages tab, but I'm wondering that maybe I should search in the flakes tab instead (though it doesn't seem to have many packages).

PPS. Those are some resources I've found (I've mainly watched the videos and have started reading some of the guides):

• https://github.com/Evertras/simple-homemanager/blob/main/04-explain-outputs-function.md
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a67Sv4Mbxmc
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a67Sv4Mbxmc&list=PLko9chwSoP-15ZtZxu64k_CuTzXrFpxPE
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63sSGuclBn0&list=PLuRxZ95-8LY1mlotZMYGYib5sXJRw1RxW
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGVXJ-TIv3Y
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLwbNhSxLd4
• https://discourse.nixos.org/t/pass-specialargs-to-the-home-manager-module/33068/4
• https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/index.xhtml#ch-usage
• https://www.chrisportela.com/posts/home-manager-flake/
• https://nixos-and-flakes.thiscute.world/
• https://discourse.nixos.org/t/practical-nix-flakes-anatomy-a-guided-tour-of-flake-nix/42550/8
• https://old.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/v2xpjm/big_list_of_flakes_tutorials/

I try to add an application that was installed with homebrew (managed by nix darwin) to the "Open at Login" settings under "General -> Login Items & Extensions".

I tried to add a launchd.user.agents entry, but that didn't work. The app is only adeded to the "Allow in the Background" settings and does not start on login.

  launchd.user.agents = {
    sanesidebuttons = {
      serviceConfig = {
        Label = "com.thealpa.sanesidebuttons";
        RunAtLoad = true;
        Program = "/Applications/SaneSideButtons.app";
      };
    };
  };

Any ideas how to add an entry to the "Open at Login" settings with nix darwin? launchd.agents and launchd.daemons seems to be the wrong place as well.

edit: for the solution, see my comment below

I'm trying to package a go application (beszel) that bundles a bunch of html stuff built with bun (think, npm).

The html is generated by running bun install and bun run and then embedded in the go binary with //go:embed.

Being completely ignorant of the javascript ecosystem, my first idea was to just replicate what they do in the Makefile

postConfigure = ''
bun install --cwd ./site
bun run     --cwd ./site build
'' 

but, since bun install downloads dependencies from the net, that fails.

I guess the "clean" solution would be to look for buildNpmPackage or similar (assuming that exists) and let nix manage all the dependencies, but... it's some 800+ dependencies (at least, bun install ... --dry-run lists 800+ things) so that's a hard pass.

I then tried to look at how buildGoPackage handles the vendoring of dependencies, with the idea of replicating that (it dowloads what's needed and then compare a hash of what was downloaded with a hash provided in the nix package definition), but... I can't for the life of me decipher how nixpkgs' pkgs/build-support/go/module.nix works.

Do you know how to implement this kind of vendoring in a nix derivation?