SUNix (Software Updates for Nix)

A small GTK4 layer-shell popup for Wayland compositors that support wlr-layer-shell. It shows the expected changes before a NixOS or Home Manager switch is applied, using dix under the hood.

Add the corresponding input to your Nix flake (recommended).

{
  inputs.sunix.url = "github:gvolpe/sunix";
}

And either use the provided Home Manager module:

modules = [ inputs.sunix.homeModules.default ];

{
  programs.sunix = {
    enable = true;
    settings = {
      dixBinary = "${pkgs.dix}/bin/dix";
      flakeDir = "$HOME/workspace/sxm-flake";
      homeFlake = "niri";
      nixosFlake = "aorus";
      styleCss = null;
      showDemo = false;
    };
  };
}

Or use the package directly:

environment.systemPackages = [ inputs.sunix.packages.${system}.default ];

Alternatively, it can also be installed via cargo install sunix (if that's preferable for some reason).

SUNix can be fully used via the following keyboard shortcuts:

• M: build or show the Home Manager report.
• N: build or show the NixOS report.
• D: show the bundled Demo report when show_demo=true.
• Up / K: scroll up in the active report or error output.
• Down / J: scroll down in the active report or error output.
• E: open the report export menu when a non-empty report is visible.
  • Alt+P / Alt+M: export the visible report as PDF or Markdown from the export menu.
• Left or H: go back from a report or error screen.
• Esc: close the popup.

Reports are cached during the same SUNix session, so reports aren't re-evaluated unless the program is restarted.

SUNix reports can be exported as a PDF file or Markdown file. The latter is particularly useful to share on Pull Requests, e.g. gvolpe/nix-config#334.

The SUNix cli can also format dix --output=json into markdown directly from stdin:

dix --output=json /path1 /path2 \
  | sunix --markdown-report "NixOS .#flake"

PDF reports are also supported by the cli:

dix --output=json /path1 /path2 \
  | sunix --pdf-report "NixOS .#flake" > sunix-report.pdf

The configuration file lives under $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sunix/sunix.toml, with the following fields being required:

flake_dir=$HOME/workspace/nix-config
home_flake=niri-hdmi
nixos_flake=aorus

By default, both Home Manager and NixOS builds run from flake_dir. If those configurations live in different flakes, override either directory with these optional fields:

home_flake_dir=$HOME/workspace/home-config
nixos_flake_dir=$HOME/workspace/nixos-config

The Home Manager configuration is built via:

nix build --print-out-paths --no-link \
  homeConfigurations.<home_flake>.activationPackage

Whereas the NixOS configuration is built via:

nix build --print-out-paths --no-link \
  nixosConfigurations.<nixos_flake>.config.system.build.toplevel

The diff with the current system state is computed via dix. If it's not installed in your system, you can set the dix_binary option in the configuration file directly, e.g.

dix_binary=/nix/store/6ziw66nh8a4b6nwrqmj0n80nsdxz5m61-dix-2.1.0/bin/dix

So that the dix binary is only available to SUNix.

Set show_demo=true to reveal a "Demo" button that renders the bundled sample.json report. Alternatively, you can also run sunix --demo which will ignore the configuration value.

SUNix uses the bundled assets/style.css by default. If you'd like to use a custom CSS file, set the following option:

style_css=/path/to/custom-style.css

NOTE: this should be a full replacement, so a good starting point would be to copy assets/style.css and make your own adjustments.

The provided Nix devshell contains the necessary software to build this project.

nix develop
cargo run
cargo fmt
cargo test
cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features

Additionally, it can be run directly via nix run.

SUNix can be easily integrated with Waybar, e.g.

"custom/sunix": {
  "format": " SUNix",
  "on-click": "pgrep -io 'sunix' | xargs kill || sunix",
  "tooltip-format": "Software Updates for Nix"
}

This project started by following my curiosity after I've replaced nvd --diff by dix, then I thought I could automate this idea of "Software Updates" as it's common in other Linux distros.

You can achieve the same functionality directly in your terminal with these one-liners.

nix build --print-out-paths --no-link \
  .#nixosConfigurations.<nixos_flake>.config.system.build.toplevel \
  | xargs dix /run/current-system/

The SUNix cli can also be used to get a Markdown report for Pull Requests:

nix build --print-out-paths --no-link \
  .#nixosConfigurations.<nixos_flake>.config.system.build.toplevel \
  | xargs dix /run/current-system/ \
  | sunix --markdown-report "NixOS .#<nixos_flake>"

nix build --print-out-paths --no-link \
  .#homeConfigurations.<home_flake>.activationPackage \
  | xargs -r dix (readlink -f "$XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profiles/home-manager")

This project was assisted by AI tools, especially for all the UI stuff I suck at, but the actual logic was designed and reviewed by myself. This documentation has been written by hand as well, as I enjoy doing so.