a8888b.           Host        -  nixos@nixos
       d888888b.          Machine     -  LENOVO ThinkPad X1 Carbon 5th 20HQS73D00
       8P"YP"Y88          Kernel      -  6.12.18
       8|o||o|88          Distro      -  NixOS 25.05 (Warbler)
       8'    .88          DE          -  River
       8`._.' Y8.         Packages    -  2427 (nix)
      d/      `8b.        Shell       -  fish
     dP        Y8b.       Terminal    -  tmux: server
    d8:       ::88b.      Brightness  -  100%
   d8"         'Y88b      Resolution  -  1920x1080
  :8P           :888      Uptime      -  1h 31m
   8a.         _a88P      CPU         -  Intel® Core™ i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70GHz (4)
 ._/"Yaa     .| 88P|      CPU Load    -  26%
 \    YP"    `|     `.    Memory      -  3.1 GB / 7.9 GB
 /     \.___.d|    .'     Battery     -  75% & Discharging
 `--..__)     `._.'

1. Simple: Minimize cognitive load, minimize configuration.
2. Effective: Get close to the best developer experience available.
3. Reliable: Favor well stablished technologies, favor software with less dependencies, favor lightweight, favor UNIX philosophy.
4. Reproducible: Be able to set up the environment quickly.
5. Minimize maintenance: Do the configuration effort upfront.

The api keys are encrypted. To use them, place the decryption key at ~/.config/keys.txt. It looks like this:

AGE-SECRET-KEY-XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Then do:

cat /run/secrets/$SECRET

1. Download the official recommended graphical iso image.
2. Burn it into an usb.
3. Install into a new machine. At boot choose the UEFI option if available. During the wizard: For desktoop environment choose GNOME. For username, name use 'nixos'. At the partitioning section choose 'Erase all'.
4. Clone this repo into ~/.config/nixos.

4a. Copy it from my backup, mounted from another usb:

nix-shell -p restic
restic restore latest -r "/run/media/$USERNAME/$USB/restic-repo" --target "/home/$USERNAME/restore/"
cp /home/$USERNAME/restore/home/$USERNAME/.config/nixos /home/$USERNAME/.config/nixos -r

If using the backup, also copy personal stuff:

cp /run/media/$USERNAME/$USB/restic-repo /home/nixos/restic-repo -r
cp /home/$USERNAME/restore/home/$USERNAME/.config/keys.txt /home/$USERNAME/.config/keys.txt
cp /home/$USERNAME/restore/home/$USERNAME/projects /home/$USERNAME/projects -r
cp /home/$USERNAME/restore/home/$USERNAME/vault /home/$USERNAME/vault -r

5. Add a new entry to the flake outputs. To do so copy the hardware-configuration.nix that has been generated at /etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix
6. Run:

nix-shell -p stow
~/.config/nixos/scripts/stow_restow.sh

7. Take the entry value from step 5. and run:

nix-shell -p git
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake "$HOME/.config/nixos#$ENTRY"

For example:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake "$HOME/.config/nixos#thinkpad"

It will download the programs (~15GB), it takes a while.

8. Run: reboot

• Ask LLMs questions through voice. Look into: https://github.com/oddlama/whisper-overlay https://github.com/KoljaB/RealtimeSTT

• Consider remote development. Look into: vps providers tailscale nixos-anywhere