My NixOS Setup
Added: July 17 2025, at 04:36pm
Tags: #software
I use NixOS on every machine I can, be that desktop, Steam Deck, servers, cloud machines, or whatever laptop or drawing tablet I can get my hands on. But there's a lot of moving parts to this setup, and many configs and variables I've had to set up to allow all these machines to run smoothly under one config.
Desktops and Laptops
Primarily, I interact with NixOS from my desktop - a faily beefy rig described here. In addition to that, I run a few laptops between homes and clubs I go to, all running under a general desktop profile. A quick rundown of what I use is as follows;
Software
- Browser
- LibreWolf is my go-to, but in the rare chance that I must use something else for compatibility, I always make sure to use UnGoogled Chromium.
- Music
- I always use MPD with the NCMPCPP frontend, in addition to MPDScribble for "scrobbling" my listening activity to Last.fm, MPD-Mpris for controlling MPD using hotkeys, and MPD-Discord-RPC for sharing that to Discord. All I need is a minimal UI to get my music going.
- Equalizer
- EasyEffects has been a blessing for a former VoiceMeeter user. It's able to run as a service, has highly configurable settings, and can be made to autoload my profile right from the my HomeManager config.
- Gaming
- Steam is my obvious default choice, with GOG as a close second, and whatever free scraps Epic Games gives me through the Heroic Games Launcher.
- File management
- I heavily use both PCManFM and Ranger for my GUI and terminal file managers, respectfully. I find it much more comfortable to use Ranger for visualizing files in a broader scope, utilizing all the vim keys and shortcuts which make it very quick to use, and PCManFM when I am working with media, like images, PDFs, or simply dragging a file into another program like Discord, Krita, or Kdenlive.
- Communication