mirror of
https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager
synced 2024-11-23 11:39:46 +01:00
247 lines
6.4 KiB
Markdown
247 lines
6.4 KiB
Markdown
Home Manager using Nix
|
|
======================
|
|
|
|
This project provides a basic system for managing a user environment
|
|
using the [Nix][] package manager together with the Nix libraries
|
|
found in [Nixpkgs][]. Before attempting to use Home Manager please
|
|
read the warning below.
|
|
|
|
Words of warning
|
|
----------------
|
|
|
|
This project is under development. I personally use it to manage
|
|
several user configurations but it may fail catastrophically for you.
|
|
So beware!
|
|
|
|
In some cases Home Manager cannot detect whether it will overwrite a
|
|
previous manual configuration. For example, the Gnome Terminal module
|
|
will write to your dconf store and cannot tell whether a configuration
|
|
that it is about to be overwrite was from a previous Home Manager
|
|
generation or from manual configuration.
|
|
|
|
Home Manager targets [NixOS][] unstable and NixOS version 17.09 (the
|
|
current stable version), it may or may not work on other Linux
|
|
distributions and NixOS versions.
|
|
|
|
Also, the `home-manager` tool does not explicitly support rollbacks at
|
|
the moment so if your home directory gets messed up you'll have to fix
|
|
it yourself (you can attempt to run the activation script for the
|
|
desired generation).
|
|
|
|
Now when your expectations have been built up and you are eager to try
|
|
all this out you can go ahead and read the rest of this text.
|
|
|
|
Installation
|
|
------------
|
|
|
|
Currently the easiest way to install Home Manager is as follows:
|
|
|
|
1. Make sure you have a working Nix installation. If you are not
|
|
using NixOS then you may here have to run
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ mkdir -m 0755 -p /nix/var/nix/{profiles,gcroots}/per-user/$USER
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
since Home Manager uses these directories to manage your profile
|
|
generations. On NixOS these should already be available.
|
|
|
|
Also make sure that your user is able to build and install Nix
|
|
packages. For example, you should be able to successfully run a
|
|
command like `nix-instantiate '<nixpkgs>' -A hello`. For a
|
|
multi-user install of Nix this means that your user must be
|
|
covered by the [`allowed-users`][nixAllowedUsers] Nix option. On
|
|
NixOS you can control this option using the
|
|
[`nix.allowedUsers`][nixosAllowedUsers] system option.
|
|
|
|
2. Assign a temporary variable holding the URL to the appropriate
|
|
archive. Typically this is
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ HM_PATH=https://github.com/rycee/home-manager/archive/master.tar.gz
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
or
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ HM_PATH=https://github.com/rycee/home-manager/archive/release-17.09.tar.gz
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
depending on whether you follow Nixpkgs unstable or version 17.09.
|
|
|
|
3. Create an initial Home Manager configuration file:
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ cat > ~/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix <<EOF
|
|
{
|
|
programs.home-manager.enable = true;
|
|
programs.home-manager.path = $HM_PATH;
|
|
}
|
|
EOF
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
4. Create the first Home Manager generation:
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ nix-shell $HM_PATH -A install --run 'home-manager switch'
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Home Manager should now be active and available in your user
|
|
environment.
|
|
|
|
Note, because the `HM_PATH` variable above points to the live Home
|
|
Manager repository you will automatically get updates whenever you
|
|
build a new generation. If you dislike automatic updates then perform
|
|
a Git clone of the desired branch and set `programs.home-manager.path`
|
|
to the absolute path of your clone.
|
|
|
|
Usage
|
|
-----
|
|
|
|
Home Manager is typically managed through the `home-manager` tool.
|
|
This tool can, for example, apply configurations to your home
|
|
directory, list user packages installed by the tool, and list the
|
|
configuration generations.
|
|
|
|
As an example, let us expand the initial configuration file from the
|
|
installation above to install the htop and fortune packages, install
|
|
Emacs with a few extra packages enabled, install Firefox with Adobe
|
|
Flash enabled, and enable the user gpg-agent service.
|
|
|
|
To satisfy the above setup we should elaborate the
|
|
`~/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix` file as follows:
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{ pkgs, ... }:
|
|
|
|
{
|
|
home.packages = [
|
|
pkgs.htop
|
|
pkgs.fortune
|
|
];
|
|
|
|
programs.emacs = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
extraPackages = epkgs: [
|
|
epkgs.nix-mode
|
|
epkgs.magit
|
|
];
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
programs.firefox = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
enableAdobeFlash = true;
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
services.gpg-agent = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
defaultCacheTtl = 1800;
|
|
enableSshSupport = true;
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
programs.home-manager = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
path = "…";
|
|
};
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
To activate this configuration you can then run
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ home-manager switch
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
or if you are not feeling so lucky,
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ home-manager build
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
which will create a `result` link to a directory containing an
|
|
activation script and the generated home directory files.
|
|
|
|
To see available configuration options with descriptions and usage
|
|
examples run
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ man home-configuration.nix
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Keeping your ~ safe from harm
|
|
-----------------------------
|
|
|
|
To configure programs and services Home Manager must write various
|
|
things to your home directory. To prevent overwriting any existing
|
|
files when switching to a new generation, Home Manager will attempt to
|
|
detect collisions between existing files and generated files. If any
|
|
such collision is detected the activation will terminate before
|
|
changing anything on your computer.
|
|
|
|
For example, suppose you have a wonderful, painstakingly created
|
|
`~/.gitconfig` and add
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{
|
|
# …
|
|
|
|
programs.git = {
|
|
enable = true;
|
|
userName = "Jane Doe";
|
|
userEmail = "jane.doe@example.org";
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
# …
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
to your configuration. Attempting to switch to the generation will
|
|
then result in
|
|
|
|
```console
|
|
$ home-manager switch
|
|
…
|
|
Activating checkLinkTargets
|
|
Existing file '/home/jdoe/.gitconfig' is in the way
|
|
Please move the above files and try again
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Graphical services
|
|
------------------
|
|
|
|
Home Manager includes a number of services intended to run in a
|
|
graphical session, for example `xscreensaver` and `dunst`.
|
|
Unfortunately, such services will not be started automatically unless
|
|
you let Home Manager start your X session. That is, you have something
|
|
like
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{
|
|
# …
|
|
|
|
services.xserver.enable = true;
|
|
|
|
# …
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
in your system configuration and
|
|
|
|
```nix
|
|
{
|
|
# …
|
|
|
|
xsession.enable = true;
|
|
xsession.windowManager.command = "…";
|
|
|
|
# …
|
|
}
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
in your Home Manager configuration.
|
|
|
|
[Nix]: https://nixos.org/nix/
|
|
[NixOS]: https://nixos.org/
|
|
[Nixpkgs]: https://nixos.org/nixpkgs/
|
|
[nixAllowedUsers]: https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#conf-allowed-users
|
|
[nixosAllowedUsers]: https://nixos.org/nixos/manual/options.html#opt-nix.allowedUsers
|