dotnix

Personal Nix flake for macOS, NixOS, Linux containers, and Asahi NixOS hosts.

Hosts

Host	Platform	Role
santibook	aarch64-darwin	macOS laptop
opal	x86_64-linux	NixOS host (Minisforum AI X1 Pro)
jade	x86_64-linux	Public VPS running ingress
lime	x86_64-linux	NixOS backup server
ruby	x86_64-linux	Incus VM
santisasahi	aarch64-linux	Asahi NixOS laptop

Maintenance

make format
make check
make bootstrap
make rebuild
make update
make upgrade
make rekey

make bootstrap supplies the Opal and NixOS cache URLs and signing keys through NIX_CONFIG, replacing stale cache settings for that rebuild. Once that configuration is active, regular make rebuild invocations use the cache automatically.

santisasahi rebuilds use --impure because the Apple Silicon firmware lives outside the flake.

Installing On macOS

1. Install Xcode CLI tools.

   xcode-select --install

2. Install Nix using the Lix installer.

   curl -sSf -L https://install.lix.systems/lix | sh -s -- install

3. Clone this flake.

   git clone https://github.com/santikid/dotnix.git ~/.nix

4. Switch to the host configuration.

   nix run nix-darwin --extra-experimental-features "nix-command flakes" -- switch --flake ~/.nix#<host>

Installing NixOS

For opal, follow the mirrored-NVMe installation notes in hosts/opal/INSTALL.md. The generic single-disk steps below are for the other NixOS hosts.

Boot the NixOS minimal installer ISO, optionally load a keymap such as loadkeys de, then format and mount the disk:

parted /dev/sda -- mklabel gpt
parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 1MiB 512MiB
parted /dev/sda -- mkpart primary 512MiB 100%
parted /dev/sda -- name 1 EFI
parted /dev/sda -- name 2 root
parted /dev/sda -- set 1 boot on

mkfs.fat -F 32 /dev/sda1
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2

mount /dev/disk/by-partlabel/root /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/disk/by-partlabel/EFI /mnt/boot

For a new host, generate hardware config:

nixos-generate-config --root /mnt

Clone and install. When opal is reachable, supply the cache settings explicitly so the initial installation can reuse CI artifacts before the installed configuration takes effect:

git clone https://github.com/santikid/dotnix /mnt/.nix
nixos-install --flake /mnt/.nix#<machine> \
  --option extra-substituters http://opal:8180/dotnix \
  --option extra-trusted-public-keys 'dotnix:N7VDgNbJ+yj6YV97+97s5HrxQ38+27OSPm17BexG3qA='

Installing Asahi NixOS

Asahi installation follows the nix-community/nixos-apple-silicon partitioning flow. Create and mount the root subvolumes:

sgdisk /dev/nvme0n1 -n 0:0 -s
sgdisk /dev/nvme0n1 -p
mkfs.btrfs -L nixos /dev/nvme0n1p5

mount /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/root
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/nix
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/home
umount /mnt

mount -o subvol=root,compress=zstd,noatime /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/{nix,home,boot}
mount -o subvol=nix,compress=zstd,noatime /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt/nix
mount -o subvol=home,compress=zstd,noatime /dev/disk/by-label/nixos /mnt/home

fatlabel /dev/disk/by-partuuid/`cat /proc/device-tree/chosen/asahi,efi-system-partition` EFI
mount /dev/disk/by-label/EFI /mnt/boot

Install with an impurity allowance for host-local firmware:

mkdir -p /mnt/tmp
TMPDIR=/mnt/tmp nixos-install --impure --flake /mnt/.nix#santisasahi