red40dotfiles

Our nixos dotfiles

WARNING

PROGRAMS YOU RUN WITH THESE DOTFILES MAY BE BROKEN OR NOT WORK. IF SO TRY REMOVING BITS OF YOUR ~/.config/ DIRECTORY UNTIL CERTAIN APPLICATIONS RUN PROPERLY.

Instructions

These instructions will start from the very beginning and walk you through every portion of the setup process step-by-step.

1. Download the Graphical ISO image of NixOS
2. Install NixOS to your computer
   • YOU MUST USE THE No Desktop OPTION WHEN SELECTING A DESKTOP
   • I also recommend you encrypt your drive as this setup has autologin and does not require a password for the desktop
   • Any other options are up to your discretion.
3. Boot into your computer on the TTY(Terminal) interface
4. Start installing the dotfiles
   1. First you should save a backup of your configuration.nix file and ~/.config/ folder
      • This is so you can recover your OS if something stops working afterwards
   2. Let's install some nix channels, because we can't keep anything simple.
      • First check which channels exist with: sudo nix-channel --list
      • sudo nix-channel --remove nixos
      • sudo nix-channel --remove nixpkgs (ONLY IF THE nixpkgs CHANNEL EXISTS)
      • sudo nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-unstable nixos
      • sudo nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable nixpkgs
      • sudo nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-24.11 nixos-24.11
      • sudo nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-25.11 nixos-25.11
      • sudo nix-channel --update
   3. Now copy the configuration.nix from the repo to /etc/nixos/configuration.nix
      • IMPORTANT: REMEMBER TO REPLACE EVERY INSTANCE OF THE USERNAME red40system WITH YOUR USERNAME
        1. Ctrl + F is the hotkey to search for a phrase
        2. Once you have found an instance of red40system you replace it with your username
        3. Repeat until Ctrl + F provides no more instances
   4. Now copy the .config folder from the repo to ~/.config/
      • cp -r -f <path-to-repo-folder>/.config/* ~/.config/
   5. Run sudo nixos-rebuild switch and look for errors, if you run into errors restore the backup you made earlier.
   6. Reboot
5. Still not done!
   • You may have booted into your Desktop Environment now but there's still some work to do.
     1. Install relevant flatpaks
        • flatpak install app.zen_browser.zen
        • flatpak install org.mozilla.thunderbird
     2. Set up your home folders
        • This setup is prepared for the following home folders
          • Pictures
          • Documents
          • Audio
          • Downloads
     3. Set up your wallpaper folder
        • Inside of the Pictures folder should be a folder called Wallpapers that noctalia-shell will be looking for