NixOS goes for blood 🦇

Nixferatu is a dark, moody setup for NixOS, built around Niri and Stylix. This is just my personal workflow (not a full-blown distro): a collection of configs and tweaks that make my system feel right at home in the shadows. If you’re curious or want to experiment, maybe you’ll find something here to spark creativity in your own setup. Check out the demo below to see how I use Nixferatu and keep safely out of the sunlight:

Reddit post / the great artist behind the avatar

Setup Guide

• Install Nixos basic configuration (here you could use the GUI installer and select no DE option or manually create and mount partitions, generate the nixos config with nixos-generate-config, and install the system with nixos-install - here is a great video by tony explaining the manual setup)

• Once you reboot into the installed system, you can proceed with the next steps

• enter a nix shell with git and vim available to help setup

nix-shell -p git vim

• clone the repo in the $HOME directory

git clone https://github.com/eduardofuncao/nixferatu

• copy needed config files to $HOME/.config/

mkdir ~/.config
cd ~/nixferatu
cp -r fish/ niri/ nvim/ ripgrep/ scripts/ swayidle/ wallpapers/ ~/.config
sudo cp kanata/kanata.kbd /etc/

ps. kitty, tmux and waybar config files are managed directly through nix

• copy the nixos config files in $HOME/nixferatu/nixos directory into /etc/nixos/, keeping only your automatically generated hardware-configuration.nix file

# backup the current hardware-configuration.nix
sudo cp /etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix /tmp/

# remove everything from /etc/nixos
sudo rm -rf /etc/nixos/*

# copy everything from your nixferatu/nixos to /etc/nixos
sudo cp -rT ~/nixferatu/nixos /etc/nixos

# restore the hardware-configuration.nix file
sudo mv /tmp/hardware-configuration.nix /etc/nixos/nixos

• replace every instance of user "eduardo" with your username (in /etc/nixos/nixos/configuration.nix, /etc/nixos/home-manager/home.nix and /etc/nixos/flake.nix)

• change localization settings to your preferred language, timezone and keyboard layout in /etc/nixos/nixos/configuration.nix

• if you want, change hostname in /etc/nixos/nixos/configuration.nix and /etc/nixos/flake.nix from nixos to something else

• build the system (we have to explicitly allow flakes on the first build. For next rebuilds, just use sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#hostname)

cd /etc/nixos
NIX_CONFIG="experimental-features = nix-command flakes" sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#nixos

now the night falls (this will take a while ⏳)

• run home-manager switch to setup user level config (similarly, on the first build we need to explicitly install home-manager. for the next runs, just use home-manager switch --flake .#user@hostname)

cd /etc/nixos
nix-shell -p home-manager
home-manager switch --flake .#eduardo@nixos

this step takes so long, you may feel the centuries pass 🗓️

• just sudo reboot, login to your system and everything should work!

Your crypt is ready ⚰️

Tips and Quirks

• On Every startup, Niri sets a random wallpaper from ~/.config/wallpapers
• Meta+Space will open up Vicinae, which is used as the app launcher. Most of the other Niri keybinds are default
• You can change the system colorscheme easily by editing the option stylix.base16Scheme in /etc/nixos/modules/home-manager/stylix. Most of the themes from tinted theming should be available. Run home-manager switch --flake .#user@hostnae to apply changes
• There is a systemd kanata service running that swaps CapsLock and Esc. The Caps key will work as Esc on press, and as Ctrl on hold as per the config in /etc/kanata.kbd
• tmux uses Ctrl+a as the leader key. Since caps lock acts as ctrl on hold, you can use your pinky and ring figers to type ctrl+a more naturally
• nvim has a pretty barebones config using the nightly v0.12 build. I don't recommend using it, as it is pretty opinionated for my uses. I would recommend using your own neovim config or creating a neovim config from scratch using kickstart.nvim
• The nixos config uses flake.nix as the entrypoint. The main config files are in /etc/nixos/nixos/configuration.nix and /etc/nixos/home-manager/home.nix. Everything else is imported from these two files
• the default programs I use are:
  • niri: wm
  • imv: images and gifs
  • mpv: videos
  • zathura: pdfs
  • neovim: editor
  • kitty: terminal
  • zen-browser
  • yazi: file manager
  • ncdu: disk usage
  • btop: system monitor
  • zoxide: cd with superpowers
  • pavucontrol: volume mixer
  • light: control screen brightness
  • bluetoothctl
  • nmtui: wifi

Vampires hate light mode 🧛‍♂️