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<button class="theme__toggle dark--hidden" aria-label="Toggle dark mode"><svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" class="icon icon-tabler icon-tabler-moon" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" stroke-width="2" stroke="currentcolor" fill="none" stroke-linecap="round" stroke-linejoin="round"><path stroke="none" d="M0 0h24v24H0z" fill="none"/><path d="M12 3c.132.0.263.0.393.0a7.5 7.5.0 007.92 12.446A9 9 0 1112 2.992z"/></svg></button></header><main><div class=content><article class=post><div class=post-header><h1>Why I threw out my dotfiles</h1><div class=post-meta><span>2021-09-08</span><div class=post-tags><a class=post-tag href=https://davegallant.ca/tags/nix>nix</a><a class=post-tag href=https://davegallant.ca/tags/dotfiles>dotfiles</a><a class=post-tag href=https://davegallant.ca/tags/home-manager>home&#8209;manager</a></div></div></div><div class=post-content><p>Over the years I have collected a number of dotfiles that I have shared across both Linux and macOS machines (<code>~/.zshrc</code>, <code>~/.config/git/config</code>, <code>~/.config/tmux/tmux.conf</code>, etc). I have tried several different ways to manage them, including <a href=https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/dotfiles class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>bare git repos</a> and utilities such as <a href=https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>GNU Stow</a>. These solutions work well enough, but I have since found what I would consider a much better solution for organizing user configuration: <a href=https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>home-manager</a>.</p><h2 id=what-is-home-manager>What is home-manager?<a href=#what-is-home-manager class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><p>Before understanding home-manager, it is worth briefly discussing what nix is. <a href=https://nixos.org/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>nix</a> is a package manager that originally spawned from a <a href=https://edolstra.github.io/pubs/phd-thesis.pdf class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>PhD thesis</a>. Unlike other package managers, it uses symbolic links to keep track of the currently installed packages, keeping around the old ones in case you may want to rollback.</p><p>For example, I have used nix to install the package <a href="https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=unstable&amp;show=bind&amp;from=0&amp;size=50&amp;sort=relevance&amp;type=packages&amp;query=bind" class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>bind</a> which includes <code>dig</code>. You can see that it is available on multiple platforms. The absolute path of <code>dig</code> can be found by running:</p><div class=highlight><pre tabindex=0 style=color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4><code class=language-console data-lang=console><span style=display:flex><span>$ ls -lh <span style=color:#66d9ef>$(</span>which dig<span style=color:#66d9ef>)</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>lrwxr-xr-x 73 root 31 Dec 1969 /run/current-system/sw/bin/dig -&gt; /nix/store/0r4qdyprljd3dki57jn6c6a8dh2rbg9g-bind-9.16.16-dnsutils/bin/dig
</span></span></code></pre></div><p>Notice that there is a hash included in the file path? This is a nix store path and is computed by the nix package manager. This <a href=https://nixos.org/guides/nix-pills/nix-store-paths.html class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>nix pill</a> does a good job explaining how this hash is computed. All of the nix pills are worth a read, if you are interested in learning more about nix itself. However, using home-manager does not require extensive knowledge of nix.</p><p>Part of the nix ecosystem includes <a href=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>nixpkgs</a>. Many popular tools can be found already packaged in this repository. As you can see with these <a href=https://repology.org/repositories/statistics/total class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>stats</a>, there is a large number of existing packages that are being maintained by the community. Contributing a new package is easy, and anyone can do it!</p><p>home-manager leverages the nix package manager (and nixpkgs), as well the nix language so that you can declaratively define your system configuration. I store my <a href=https://github.com/davegallant/nix-config class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>nix-config</a> in git so that I can keep track of my packages and configurations, and retain a clean and informative git commit history so that I can understand what changed and why.</p><h2 id=setting-up-home-manager>Setting up home-manager<a href=#setting-up-home-manager class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><blockquote><p>⚠️ If you run this on your main machine, make sure you backup your configuration files first. home-manager is pretty good about not overwriting existing configuration, but it is better to have a backup! Alternatively, you could test this out on a VM or cloud instance.</p></blockquote><p>The first thing you should do is <a href=https://nixos.org/guides/install-nix.html class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>install nix</a>:</p><div class=highlight><pre tabindex=0 style=color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4><code class=language-shell data-lang=shell><span style=display:flex><span>curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
</span></span></code></pre></div><p>It&rsquo;s generally not a good idea to curl and execute files from the internet (without verifying integrity), so you might want to download the install script first and take a look before executing it!</p><p>Open up a new shell in your terminal and running <code>nix</code> <em>should</em> work. If not, run <code>. ~/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/nix.sh</code></p><p>Now, <a href=https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager#installation class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>install home-manager</a>:</p><div class=highlight><pre tabindex=0 style=color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4><code class=language-shell data-lang=shell><span style=display:flex><span>nix-channel --add https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/archive/master.tar.gz home-manager
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>nix-channel --update
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>nix-shell <span style=color:#e6db74>&#39;&lt;home-manager&gt;&#39;</span> -A install
</span></span></code></pre></div><p>You should see a wave of <code>/nix/store/*</code> paths being displayed on your screen.</p><p>Now, to start off with a basic configuration, open up <code>~/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix</code> in the editor of your choice and paste this in (you will want to change <code>userName</code> and <code>homeDirectory</code>):</p><div class=highlight><pre tabindex=0 style=color:#f8f8f2;background-color:#272822;-moz-tab-size:4;-o-tab-size:4;tab-size:4><code class=language-nix data-lang=nix><span style=display:flex><span>{ config<span style=color:#f92672>,</span> pkgs<span style=color:#f92672>,</span> <span style=color:#f92672>...</span> }:
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>{
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> programs<span style=color:#f92672>.</span>home-manager<span style=color:#f92672>.</span>enable <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> home <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> username <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;dave&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> homeDirectory <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;/home/dave&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> stateVersion <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;21.11&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> packages <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>with</span> pkgs; [
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> bind
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> exa
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> fd
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> ripgrep
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> ];
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> programs <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> git <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> enable <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> aliases <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> aa <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;add -A .&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> br <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;branch&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> c <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;commit -S&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> ca <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;commit -S --amend&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> cb <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;checkout -b&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> co <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;checkout&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> d <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;diff&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> l <span style=color:#f92672>=</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;log --graph --pretty=format:&#39;%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)&lt;%an&gt;%Creset&#39; --abbrev-commit&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> delta <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> enable <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> options <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> features <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;line-numbers decorations&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> whitespace-error-style <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;22 reverse&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> plus-style <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;green bold ul &#39;#198214&#39;&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> decorations <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> commit-decoration-style <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;bold yellow box ul&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> file-style <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;bold yellow ul&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> file-decoration-style <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;none&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> extraConfig <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> push <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> { default <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;current&#34;</span>; };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> pull <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> { rebase <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>; };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> starship <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> enable <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> enableZshIntegration <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> settings <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> add_newline <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>false</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> scan_timeout <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#ae81ff>10</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> zsh <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> enable <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> enableAutosuggestions <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> enableSyntaxHighlighting <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> history<span style=color:#f92672>.</span>size <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#ae81ff>1000000</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> localVariables <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> CASE_SENSITIVE <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;true&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> DISABLE_UNTRACKED_FILES_DIRTY <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;true&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> RPROMPT <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;&#34;</span>; <span style=color:#75715e># override because macOS defaults to filepath</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> ZSH_AUTOSUGGEST_HIGHLIGHT_STYLE <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;fg=#838383,underline&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> ZSH_DISABLE_COMPFIX <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;true&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> initExtra <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#39;&#39;
</span></span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:#e6db74> export PAGER=less
</span></span></span><span style=display:flex><span><span style=color:#e6db74> &#39;&#39;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> shellAliases <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;..&#34;</span> <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;cd ..&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> grep <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;rg --smart-case&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> ls <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;exa -la --git&#34;</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;oh-my-zsh&#34;</span> <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> {
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> enable <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> <span style=color:#66d9ef>true</span>;
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> plugins <span style=color:#f92672>=</span> [
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;gitfast&#34;</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> <span style=color:#e6db74>&#34;last-working-dir&#34;</span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> ];
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span> };
</span></span><span style=display:flex><span>}
</span></span></code></pre></div><p>Save the file and run:</p><pre tabindex=0><code>home-manager switch
</code></pre><p>You should see another wave of <code>/nix/store/*</code> paths. The new configuration should now be active.</p><p>If you run <code>zsh</code>, you should see that you have <a href=https://starship.rs/ class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>starship</a> and access to several other utils such as <code>rg</code>, <code>fd</code>, and <code>exa</code>.</p><p>This basic configuration above is also defining your <code>~/.config/git/config</code> and <code>.zshrc</code>. If you already have either of these files, home-manager will complain about them already existing.</p><p>If you run <code>cat ~/.zshrc</code>, you will see the way these configuration files are generated.</p><p>You can extend this configuration for programs such as (neo)vim, emacs, alacritty, ssh, etc. To see other programs, take a look at <a href=https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/tree/master/modules/programs class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>home-manager/modules/programs</a>.</p><h2 id=gateway-to-nix>Gateway To Nix<a href=#gateway-to-nix class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><p>In ways, home-manager can be seen as a gateway to the nix ecosystem. If you have enjoyed the way you can declare user configuration with home-manager, you may be interested in expanding your configuration to include other system dependencies and configuration. For example, in Linux you can define your entire system&rsquo;s configuration (including the kernel, kernel modules, networking, filesystems, etc) in nix. For macOS, there is <a href=https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>nix-darwin</a> that includes nix modules for configuring launchd, dock, and other preferences and services. You may also want to check out <a href=https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Flakes class=link--external target=_blank rel=noreferrer>Nix Flakes</a>: a more recent feature that allows you declare dependencies, and have them automatically pinned and hashed in <code>flake.lock</code>, similar to that of many modern package managers.</p><h2 id=wrapping-up>Wrapping up<a href=#wrapping-up class=post-heading__anchor aria-hidden=true>#</a></h2><p>The title of this post is slightly misleading, since it&rsquo;s possible to retain some of your dotfiles and have them intermingle with home-manager by including them alongside nix. The idea of defining user configuration using nix can provide a clean way to maintain your configuration, and allow it to be portable across platforms. Is it worth the effort to migrate away from shell scripts and dotfiles? I&rsquo;d say so.</p></div><script type=text/javascript src=https://storage.ko-fi.com/cdn/widget/Widget_2.js></script><script type=text/javascript>kofiwidget2.init("Buy me a coffee","#458588","F1F2S4LWI"),kofiwidget2.draw()</script><section id=comments class=comments><div class='container sep-before'><div class=comments><script>var getTheme=window.localStorage&&window.localStorage.getItem("theme-storage"),getTheme=getTheme??"light";let theme=getTheme==="dark"?"github-dark":"github-light",s=document.createElement("script");s.src="https://utteranc.es/client.js",s.setAttribute("repo","davegallant/davegallant.github.io"),s.setAttribute("issue-term","pathname"),s.setAttribute("theme",theme),s.setAttribute("crossorigin","anonymous"),s.setAttribute("async",""),document.querySelector("div.comments").innerHTML="",document.querySelector("div.comments").appendChild(s)</script></div></div></section></article></div><div class=sidebar><aside class=bio><div class="jr__item jr-basics__item"><div class=jr-basics__name>Dave Gallant</div><div class=jr-basics__label>Software Engineer</div><div class=jr-basics__email>me@davegallant.ca</div><div class=jr-basics__summary>I'm a software tinkerer passionate about infra, security and self-hosting 👋.</div><hr><div class="jr-basics__profile jr-basics__profile--row"><a href=https://linktr.ee/davegallant target=_blank rel="noreferrer me"><div class=jr-basics__profile-item><div class=jr-basics__profile-icon><svg role="img" viewBox="0 0 24 24" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><title>Linktree</title><path d="m13.73635 5.85251 4.00467-4.11665 2.3248 2.3808-4.20064 4.00466h5.9085v3.30473h-5.9365l4.22865 4.10766-2.3248 2.3338L12.0005 12.099l-5.74052 5.76852-2.3248-2.3248 4.22864-4.10766h-5.9375V8.12132h5.9085L3.93417 4.11666l2.3248-2.3808 4.00468 4.11665V0h3.4727zm-3.4727 10.30614h3.4727V24h-3.4727z"/></svg></div></div></a><a href=https://github.com/davegallant target=_blank rel="noreferrer me"><div class=jr-basics__profile-item><div 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