intro

i am 1.5 months into the nixos rabbit hole. i am learning so much every day! i really like the whole concept; it seems like the exact tool that i've been dreaming of for so long to help me tidy up my dotfiles, move away from docker, and show everyone what i'm running on my servers, all in one place.

this is essentially the Reese Operating System that i use every day now.

structure

`drivers`

snippets that can be imported as needed to add core functionality.

`home`

my home-manager configuration. home/profiles/ contains userspace software declarations that get imported into the home-manager.users.reese scope as desired.

`hosts`

definitions for each nixos machine in my herd. they contain the results of the hardware scan and that machine's specific configuration.

`asteroid`

Dell Wyse 5070 Thin Client desktop PC; installed in a cubby under my desk and hooked up to my ultrawide monitor.

runs zigbee & z-wave bridges for home assistant and tvheadend for watching OTA television. each has a special USB dongle for hardware communication.

`blizzard`

a VM on my Proxmox server at home. i have several VMs across 2 servers which is probably not great for my energy bill, so i'm trying to downsize by moving many of the things i host into one place. NixOS gives me a great opportunity to do that in a manageable way.

i used to use docker (compose) a lot, notably for some microservices in another VM, twister. my first foray into nixos involved moving some of these services over to blizzard. i'll continue to migrate services from twister and other VMs on the host, and perhaps one day NixOS might even end up replacing Proxmox...

`comet`

a Raspberry Pi 4b i had sitting around. i'm working on moving the USB-related services from asteroid so that it doesn't need to be on and awake all the time.

`nimbus`

a capsul VM with a similar story to blizzard — i would like to move services from my alpine linux capsul over to nixos.

`tempest`

a laptop i like to use while away from my desk. the hostname and hardware are subject to change ("tempest" because it's temporary).

`modules`

nixos and home-manager modules.

`secrets`

agenix encrypted secrets storage.

`services`

server programs that provide some sort of network-accessible utility.

incantations

deploy to a single host: deploy .#hostname
build installer image: nix build .#nixosConfigurations.installer.config.system.build.isoImage
build comet sdcard image: nix build .#nixosConfigurations.comet.config.system.build.sdImage

inspo

name meaning

a bighorn is a type of sheep named for its big uhh.. horns...
they hang out on mountains where it is perhaps a bit cold and snowy.
nix has (snow)flakes! :)

<- all repos

bighorn @ main

🐑 my nixOS system and home-manager config

clone

readme