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- - - -

Posts

- -

- - -

Adventures in NixOS - Part 1

- Kumar Damani, - 24 March 2023 -

- -

Almost a guide to getting started with NixOS the modern (2023) way.

- -

Romanticism in Programming

- Kumar Damani, - 29 November 2022 -

- -

Why there is art in programming.

- -

Why do I self-host?

- Kumar Damani, - 12 September 2022 -

- -

My reasons for self-hosting.

- -

Programs and Equipment

- Kumar Damani, - 12 November 2021 -

- -

The programs and equipment I use on a daily basis.

- - -

- - - - - -

- - - diff --git a/public/post/index.xml b/public/post/index.xml deleted file mode 100644 index be7d5ab..0000000 --- a/public/post/index.xml +++ /dev/null @@ -1,47 +0,0 @@ - - - - Posts on Kumar Damani - Home - https://kumardamani.net/post/ - Recent content in Posts on Kumar Damani - Home - Hugo -- gohugo.io - en-us - Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 - - Adventures in NixOS - Part 1 - https://kumardamani.net/post/nixos-p1/ - Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 - - https://kumardamani.net/post/nixos-p1/ - Almost a guide to getting started with NixOS the modern (2023) way. - - - - Romanticism in Programming - https://kumardamani.net/post/programming-as-art/ - Tue, 29 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 - - https://kumardamani.net/post/programming-as-art/ - Why there is art in programming. - - - - Why do I self-host? - https://kumardamani.net/post/self-host/ - Mon, 12 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000 - - https://kumardamani.net/post/self-host/ - My reasons for self-hosting. - - - - Programs and Equipment - https://kumardamani.net/post/programs/ - Fri, 12 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 - - https://kumardamani.net/post/programs/ - The programs and equipment I use on a daily basis. - - - - diff --git a/public/post/nixos-p1/boot.png b/public/post/nixos-p1/boot.png deleted file mode 100644 index 4e3d972..0000000 Binary files a/public/post/nixos-p1/boot.png and /dev/null differ diff --git a/public/post/nixos-p1/dwl.png b/public/post/nixos-p1/dwl.png deleted file mode 100644 index 8ecbe4d..0000000 Binary files a/public/post/nixos-p1/dwl.png and /dev/null differ diff --git a/public/post/nixos-p1/fox.jpg b/public/post/nixos-p1/fox.jpg deleted file mode 100644 index 3ace57f..0000000 Binary files a/public/post/nixos-p1/fox.jpg and /dev/null differ diff --git a/public/post/nixos-p1/index.html b/public/post/nixos-p1/index.html deleted file mode 100644 index 54c7ccb..0000000 --- a/public/post/nixos-p1/index.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,434 +0,0 @@ - - - - Adventures in NixOS - Part 1 – Kumar Damani - Home - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - -

Adventures in NixOS - Part 1

- -

Almost a guide to getting started with NixOS the modern (2023) way.

There seems to be a shortage of written guides on the Internet for setting up NixOS -the “modern” way - Flakes + Home Manager. It doesn’t help that Nix’s official -docs are very disjointed so hopefully this will fill in some gaps that I observed -when setting it all up.

meme

-
Warning: NixOS is not exactly beginner friendly - -you should have familiarity installing Linux distros before trying this.
-

But Why NixOS?

Eh… FOMO regarding all the memes.

There is one particular feature that is intriguing - -the ability to roll-back your entire system (not incl. BIOS) in case of a -misconfiguration or a broken update. You can’t do this with Ansible. -This allows you (in theory) to get the benefits of a rolling release as well as the -stability benefits of a traditional distro.

-
It takes the idea of reproducible builds, and extends it to the OS.
-

For example, NixOS will present you with all previous “builds” at boot time -for you to revert to in case something gets messed up. - boot prompt

Things I want to explore as part of this exercise:

How hard is it to go from a minimal install to productive? -At minimum I need a graphical environment with working vol, mic, camera, wifi, -and hibernation. -Is it harder than doing the same in something like Manjaro?
Is Wayland truly ready?
Try out dwl (the Wayland port of dwm by the suckless folks)

Constraints

I want to stick to the “Nix” way of doing things as much as possible -where it makes sense to me.
Stick to Wayland only applications as much as possible.

Spoilers! (End result)

my rice -(Probably too ugly for r/unixporn, but works for me :)

Installation

Getting a Live USB going

I used the minimal iso.
Create a bootable USB with the usual - sudo dd if=/path/to/iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M.
Boot up.
Then start following the steps for manual installation -from the official guide to complete the install.

-
Make sure to give SWAP as much space as your memory capacity for hibernation to work properly.
-

-
Wifi did not work for me out of the box. So I used my phone to tether via USB.
-

First boot

If everything went well, you should be presented with a TTY prompting you to login:

NixOS ...
-Login: <your username>
-Password: <your password>
-

Once you login, you will still just have a TTY, but we can now go ahead and start -installing our graphical environment.

Housekeeping

You should have two NixOS config files in /etc/nixos/:

configuration.nix
-hardware-configuration.nix
-

-
Edit the configuration.nix file by setting the correct values for hostname, networking, timezone and users. I also add a few basic system-wide packages here such as git, rsync, neovim, htop etc.
-
-
To apply and use your changes to any of these files you need to run:
-

sudo nixos-rebuild switch
-

Since we want all our configuration to be version controlled, -I copied these files to live under my user’s config: -~/.config/{nix, nixpkgs}/:

cp /etc/nix/nix.conf ~/.config/nix/nix.conf
-cp /etc/nixos/configuration.nix ~/.config/nixpkgs/configuration.nix
-

Nix will now use these user-specific files to read its config :)

Flakes Support

Nix (the pkg mgr) does not come with Flakes support out-of-the-box. -So we need to enable it:

In ~/.config/nix/nix.conf add:

experimental-features = nix-command flakes
-

Apply it:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch
-

Read about Flakes.

Home Manager Support

Now we can install the Home-Manager flake.

Init our base flake:

cd ~/.config/nixpkgs
-nix flake init
-

This should generate two files:

flake.nix
-flake.lock
-

Next we tell flake.nix to manage all our configuration (system + home) for our system:

{
-  description = "NixOS configuration";
-
-  inputs = {
-    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
-    home-manager.url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
-    home-manager.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
-    nixos-hardware.url = "github:NixOS/nixos-hardware/master";
-  };
-
-  outputs = inputs@{ nixpkgs, home-manager, nixos-hardware, ... }: {
-    nixosConfigurations = {
-      # Change below to use your hostname from configuration.nix
-      "art-sr" = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
-        system = "x86_64-linux";
-        modules = [
-          ./configuration.nix
-          nixos-hardware.nixosModules.framework
-          home-manager.nixosModules.home-manager
-          {
-            home-manager.useGlobalPkgs = true;
-            home-manager.useUserPackages = true;
-      	    # Change below to use your username from configuration.nix
-            home-manager.users.kdam0 = import ./home.nix;
-
-            # Optionally, use home-manager.extraSpecialArgs to pass
-            # arguments to home.nix
-          }
-        ];
-      };
-    };
-  };
-}
-

-
“art-sr” is my hostname for this machine.
-

In my case, I also have the following two lines specifically to load settings for my hardware:

    nixos-hardware.url = "github:NixOS/nixos-hardware/master";
-    ...
-          nixos-hardware.nixosModules.framework
-

you will need to modify these values based on your hardware support.

Create a ~/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix file with your values:

{ config, pkgs, ...}: 
-{
-  home.username = "kdam0";
-  home.homeDirectory = "/home/kdam0";
-
-  programs.home-manager.enable = true;
-  home.stateVersion = "22.11";
-
-  services.gpg-agent = {
-    enable = true;
-    defaultCacheTtl = 1800;
-    enableSshSupport = true;
-  };
-}
-

Apply:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch
-

-
It took a few attempts to get NixOS to re-build successfully. -I ran into a few different issues involving users, and hostnames -while following the official docs until I arrived at the configs above which worked.
-

Read about Home Manager flake.

This would be a good time init a git repo in ~/.config/nixpkgs/ and publish your progress.

Setting up the GUI

Window Manager + bar + system info.

Getting dwl is easy enough. In my home.nix:

  home.packages = [
-    pkgs.dwl
-    ...
-  ];
-

This will install dwl on a rebuild. -Then I can run it with dwl.

Oh it fails…something about permissions… -In ~/.config/nixpkgs/configuration.nix make sure you have:

  security.polkit.enable = true;
-

Oh it fails again with GLE errors :( Add:

  hardware.opengl = {
-    enable = true;
-    driSupport = true;
-  };
-

Sweet now it launches!

But of course I need to configure the keys - that’s the whole point of a WM. -Additionally, dwl requires a re-build on every config change…

How do I tell Nix to use my config file while installing/building dwl?

Lucking all packages (pkgs.*) build files are defined on their GitHub. -We can see that we are allowed to pass in a conf argument to -this -file.

After a bit of digging around, I arrived at how to do it:

First copy your config.h to ~/.config/nixpkgs/dwl/config.h.
Then point to it in your home.nix:

  home.packages = [
-    (pkgs.dwl.override {
-      # trying to supply config.home.homeDirectory here leads to "impure" usage.
-      # so disabling it for now.
-      # conf = (builtins.readFile "${config.home.homeDirectory}/.config/dwl/config.h");
-      conf = ./dwl/config.h;
-    })
-    ...
-  ];
-

-
I know I can just clone the source myself and build it, but I like to use the default -package manager whenever possible to manage packages.
-

Of course since dwl is as minimal as it gets, it does not ship with a bar. -We have many options for which bar to use, -I have very little use for a bar, so I kept it very simple and went with somebar:

  home.packages = [
-    ...
-    pkgs.somebar
-    ...
-  ];
-

If you want status info on your bar you can use something like someblocks - which will -let you script simple scripts with text output you want displayed in each block. -This will need to be cloned and built manually as it is not available in the Nix repos.

Oh but you probably don’t have make or any requirements to actually build it…fear not:

nix-shell -p gnumake
-

which put you in a temporary environment with all the common build tools available. -Now you can:

sudo make install
-

wbg is a simple background setter for Wayland……aaaand BAM!

dwl pic

Terminal

I use foot.

Create the config file in ~/.config/nixpkgs/foot/foot.ini:

# for transparency #
-[colors]
-alpha=0.7
-

Use it in home.nix:

  home.file.".config/foot/foot.ini".source = ../../common/foot/foot.ini;
-

-
I use this pattern for pretty much all my dotfiles:
-

  # script that sets a bg.
-  home.file."bg.sh".source = common/bg.sh;
-  # script that starts my gui env.
-  home.file."start.sh".source = common/start.sh;
-  # foot config
-  home.file.".config/foot/foot.ini".source = common/foot/foot.ini;
-  # wofi config (app launcher)
-  home.file.".config/wofi/style.css".source = common/wofi/style.css;
-  # mako config (notifications)
-  home.file.".config/mako/config".source = common/mako/config;
-

Sound

In my configuration.nix:

  security.rtkit.enable = true;
-  services.pipewire = {
-    enable = true;
-    alsa.enable = true;
-    alsa.support32Bit = true;
-    pulse.enable = true;
-    wireplumber.enable = true;
-    media-session.enable = false;
-    jack.enable = true;
-    systemWide = false;
-  };
-

Nextcloud

I want a purely CLI way to handle this, and a periodic sync is sufficient for me. -We do this with systemd-timers (Nix advises against cron). -In my home.nix:

  systemd.user.services = {
-    nextcloud-sync = {
-      Unit = {
-        Description = "Auto sync Nextcloud";
-        After = "network-online.target";
-      };
-      Service = {
-        Type = "simple";
-        EnvironmentFile = "${config.home.homeDirectory}/.nextcloud.env";
-        ExecStart = ''
-          ${pkgs.nextcloud-client}/bin/nextcloudcmd \
-          -h --non-interactive \
-          --user "''${NEXTCLOUD_USER}" \
-          --password "''${NEXTCLOUD_PASSWORD}" \
-          ''${NEXTCLOUD_DIR} \
-          ''${NEXTCLOUD_URL}
-        '';
-        TimeoutStopSec = "180";
-        KillMode = "process";
-        KillSignal = "SIGINT";
-      };
-      Install.WantedBy = ["multi-user.target"];
-    };
-  };
-  systemd.user.timers = {
-    nextcloud-sync = {
-      Unit.Description = "Automatic sync files with Nextcloud when booted up after 5 minutes then rerun every 10 minutes";
-      Timer.OnUnitActiveSec = "10min";
-      Install.WantedBy = ["multi-user.target" "timers.target"];
-    };
-  };
-  systemd.user.startServices = true;
-

Conclusions

Yes setting things up from a minimal iso is harder than in Manjaro. -Although I got everything I wanted working, there were many times I felt -like giving up. (Aside: I am so grateful for Manjaro, and Arch wikis). -That said, I expect this friction is a one-time cost for building familiarity with Nix, -and well worth the benefits that come with it.
You bet Wayland is ready. Multi-monitor works out-of-the-box, -all my apps support it, and things just feel more polished than I have ever felt with Xorg.
dwl is as awesome as I had hoped! This is my daily driver now.

My configs

All the configs discussed (and more) are in my nixdotfiles repo.

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- - - diff --git a/public/post/nixos-p1/rice.png b/public/post/nixos-p1/rice.png deleted file mode 100644 index 4fd97cf..0000000 Binary files a/public/post/nixos-p1/rice.png and /dev/null differ diff --git a/public/post/programming-as-art/code.png b/public/post/programming-as-art/code.png deleted file mode 100644 index 30c3522..0000000 Binary files a/public/post/programming-as-art/code.png and /dev/null differ diff --git a/public/post/programming-as-art/index.html b/public/post/programming-as-art/index.html deleted file mode 100644 index 32ff96c..0000000 --- a/public/post/programming-as-art/index.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,179 +0,0 @@ - - - - Romanticism in Programming – Kumar Damani - Home - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - -

Romanticism in Programming

- -

Why there is art in programming.

During my early days as a CS student, one of the first mind-blowing moments was -watching Hello World! getting printed out to the console thousands of times -in just two functional lines of code.

for _ in range(1, 1001):
-  print("Hello World!")
-

At the time it felt like having the Elder Wand. - Dumbledore with Elder Wand pic

But there was more to our lesson. -The TA then asks us to put our newly found power to use by computing the -sum of 1 to 100. Of course, it was a natural application of what we had just done earlier:

sum = 0
-for i in range(1, 100+1):
-  sum = sum + i
-

Sure enough we saw the answer 5050 in the console. -But then the TA reminds us that we are making our computers work too hard. -In other words, the computer needs to do one-hundred ADD instructions in order to make this computation happen.

What if the number was a million? How well would our method scale?

Well then it would take a million ADD instructions. -We call this scaling linearly with the input size. -Later we would formalize this to $\mathcal{O}(n)$ (pronounced: Big Oh of N).

The TA hinted that there is a better way, and that we already know of the better way in math.

Teaching meme

$\displaystyle S_n = \sum\limits_{i=1}^n i = 1 + 2 + … + n = \frac{n (n + 1)}{2}$

With this we are no longer using loops, but a known mathematical fact about sequences. -If you don’t belive me, see the proof.

Written as code:

sum = n (n + 1) / 2
-

This one-liner solves our problem with just 3 (ADD, MULTIPLY, DIVIDE) instructions. -Crucially, it does not depend on the size of the input like our previous solution, thus -no matter the input, it always takes 3 instructions to compute! -This is a HUGE win!

$Math meme$

Later we would formalize this to $\mathcal{O}(1)$, or constant scaling.

-
Yes, yes I know IRL the complier would optimize the loop solution -such that it does not take N instructions but for the purposes of -learning we were not allowed to depend on that.
-

Looking back at it now, -both solutions are equally correct, and modern compilers would optimize the first solution -in the final instructions sent to the cpu, such that any performance differences would be negligible. -In other words, the computer wouldn’t acutally be working so hard.

Objectively, the first solution is more readable, and friendly to a new observer than the second.

Why then am I still so drawn to the second solution?

The first solution reminds me of the saying “to a hammer, eveything looks like a nail”. -Its a brute force approach. -In comparison, the second solution is using the exact tool for our particular problem. -It somehow feels personalized and dare I say romantic.

When I reflect on moments like this, it reminds me that there is emergent elegance and beauty -even in the seemingly arbitrary sequence of symbols that is code. - The Matrix code going by image

Programming is not quite as objective as people would have you believe. -There are trade-offs to each solution, and which solution you prefer relect on the trade-offs -you are willing to accept, which varies by the observer: much like art.

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- - - -

Programs and Equipment

- -

The programs and equipment I use on a daily basis.

Programs and Equipment I Use

I’m about getting things done quickly and having as little space between -my thoughts and actions on the computer.

I like having vim-like bindings and prefer running programs in the terminal for simplicity’s sake. -That said, I’m very much against the cringe meme that things in the terminal are “cooler” or “nerdier” XD. -Terminals are good for most tasks, but useless for others, for example, browsing the web -(I admit this unfortunate fact with much consternation) or looking at maps.

Software I Use

OS Distribution

Manjaro (stable) though this is a bit of a moot point since there’s been a lot of convergence among the -popular distros recently especially since they all offer some dedicated channel for getting up-to-date -software. The real day-to-day difference to workflow comes from the choice of desktop environment. -I do like Debian, and Fedora as well.

Desktop Environment

I’ve settled on KDE Plasma w/ Wayland after many years of hopping. -Plasma comes with all the tools you’d expect to see in a modern desktop, -and for the most part these tools are perfectly capable of doing the task they are meant to do. -Prior to KDE, I’ve used Dwm/Bsmpw + Sxhkd, i3 etc. I’m glad these exist and people get -use out of it, but for now I do not miss it - I’m sure that will eventually change too.

KDE Plasma

Text Editor

(neo)vim. Less of a text editor and more of a lifestyle. Check out my dotfiles for this. -No, I’m not going to ever switch to emacs.

Neovim

Web Browser

Firefox / -Brave / -Vivaldi. -I have tried, Chromium, Qutebrowser in the past.

File Manager

nnn. Yes, I have used ranger.

nnn

Where can I find good software options?

The program of your dreams is probably listed below:

The suckless website’s list of programs that “rock”. -Generally minimalist programs.
A more comprehensive list -of minimalist software.
FSF’s Free Software Directory. -Emphasis on libre software (although most software in the links above will have free licenses as well).
Gentoo Wiki Recommendations -A good mix of programs for novices and advanced users.

Hardware I Use

Laptop

The main laptop I use is the Framework laptop. -I’m a huge fan of the whole upgradability concept coming from a few generations of ThinkPads.

What I don’t use

Proprietary software.

I’m not going to endorse proprietary services that have gone out of their way to spy on or politically -suppress their users, just as Facebook, Discord etc. -One of the many take-aways you should get from me is that the use of libre/free software, -by its nature, is more constructive and extensible; and that’s the point.

There are philosophical reasons for this I’ll talk about in time, but for now, -suffice it to say I will not endorse the usage of proprietary software.

- - -

- - - - - -

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- - - -

Why do I self-host?

- -

My reasons for self-hosting.

Digital freedom/independence

Freedeom pic

To put it simply, if you use a service such as Lastpass, iCloud, Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive, etc. -to store your data, you do not own it.

You are trusting corp. X to store it, secure it, and make it available to you. -Beyond the obvious privacy pitfalls with this, there are many other things that -could go wrong with your data being stored this way:

Corp. X could vanish/close/“declare bankruptcy” (as with many crypto corps. lately), and you lose your data.
Corp. X could make a policy change and lock you out from accessing your account.
Or you could “forget” to pay the bills a few times and get locked out.
Corp. X could get hacked, and your data gets stolen. This is the latest trend!
Many other doomsday 💀 scenarios.

Personally, I don’t feel comfortable depending on the existence of corp. X for data that is important to -me i.e. a lifetime’s worth of documents, memories, and passwords etc. -I 💤 much better at night knowing I am avoiding most if not all of the risks above.

Privacy

Normies often ask me some variation of:

Why do I care if corp. X has my data? I have nothing to hide!
Since I’m aware of targeted advertising, it won’t work on me, -so why should I care if corp. X has my data?

- -

To such questions, I follow-up with:

-
Do you want to contribute to a dystopian (Orwellian future?
-

- -

If your answer is yes, then no need to read further, the following will not change your mind.

If your answer is no, but you aren’t convinced that/how these are related, -then the argument goes something like this…

We live in a world of mass data-collection/surveillance.
This enables corp. X to use techniques such as ML (Machine Learning) to build/train models (or “AI” - -Artificial Intelligence)that aim to predict human behaviour.
That by itself is not a problem here.
The problems arise when corp. X use these techniques for profit without -regard for the harm they cause at a population level.

I have unfortunately lived through enough of these cases to be able to cite a few recent examples:

-
Instagram (etc.) designs its apps/products optimizing for maximum addiction¹. -Think slot-machines. -You might think you are “too smart” to fall for these tricks, and you might be right, -but what about the millions of adolescents using these platforms who aren’t as wise as you? -The data collected, and techniques developed from your usage enables platforms -to target not only you, but all users on the platform, including the most vulnerable.
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Unfortunately, many of these kids will end up suffering from mental-health, -body-image, self-esteem issues², -and for some it will be fatal. -I do not think this is morally acceptable, and is primary reason I refuse -to participate in social-media platforms.
-
-

You could say “well that’s due to bad parenting”, but the point remains that -more and more of the digital world is having real world negative consequences regardless of -your individual participation level. Another example:

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By now its well known that Facebook’s (etc.) targeted advertising -played a significant a role in the 2016 US Elections³. -Facebook was able to do this thanks to its users voluntarily giving personal information for two decades. -However, the policies that come out of this election has real world consequences to millions -(if not billions) of people, regardless of their individual Facebook usage, which -undermines the very purpose of a democratic republic. -Regardless of your political affiliation, it should worry you that this can happen.
-
-

To summarize, it might not be a problem if individuals disregard their -privacy at the individual level, but in aggregate, a population-wide disregard -has dystopian consequences.

So the question you have to ask yourself is:

-
What can I do?
-

Start by valuing your privacy. -Then, follow some of these tips to say no…

Limit your exposure to these services. If a friend stops talking to you because -of this, then congratulations, you’ve just gotten rid of a fake friend. You’re welcome.
Self-host -as much as you can. -You can see how I implement this and replicate it yourself, -though it is a bit involved for normies.
If neither of the above work for you, then you’ll need to do some research to -find an alternative source that you can trust isn’t doing the same thing. -Use this -as a starting point and try to search (Ctrl+f) for your service. For eg. Twitter, and -Instagram both have popular options available.
Stop using Chrome. If you must use it, use Brave instead. -I advocate for Firefox. -Neither are perfect, but both offer privacy respecting options in their settings. -Specifically disabling cross-site tracking is important. -Beyond that, install an ad-blocker extension such as UBlock Origin -on both of them. Don’t forget to do the same on your mobile device!
Things get more complicated on cell-phones. -I suggest switching to a privacy respecting operating-system such as GrapheneOS -Short of this, you can only limit your usage.
Support government policies that respect user-privacy.

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Links

But Why NixOS?

Things I want to explore as part of this exercise:

Constraints

Spoilers! (End result)

Installation

Getting a Live USB going

First boot

Housekeeping

Flakes Support

Home Manager Support

Setting up the GUI

Window Manager + bar + system info.

Terminal

Sound

Nextcloud

Conclusions

My configs

Links

Links

Programs and Equipment I Use

Software I Use

OS Distribution

Desktop Environment

Text Editor

Web Browser

File Manager

Where can I find good software options?

Hardware I Use

Laptop

What I don’t use

Links

Digital freedom/independence

Privacy

Links