a multi-host flake which defines a reasonable nixos system, made up of:

• sway
• gdm
• a number of tools for settings management (wifi, bluetooth, sound, etc)
• alacritty
• zsh
• neovim (nixvim via a nvix fork)

this flake is configured for my use case, but you might find the modules helpful. laptop, desktop, and server uses are considered

Usage Instructions:

1. If you have a fresh nixos install be sure to do the following in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix:

• enable flakes
• add git
• set your machines hostname

2. Create a .nix file in the hosts directory. use one of the existing hosts as an example. emmerich is a desktop, mistral is a laptop

• be sure to copy your machines /etc/nixos/hardware-configuration.nix to your new hosts directory

3. add a nixosConfigurations.<hostname> section to the flake.nix file
4. sudo nixos-rebuild --flake "path-to-flake" switch should then just work

CM3588 install (ignore this if you are not using a CM3588 board)

• boot from sd card (TODO, flesh out these instructions)
• partition the emmc

sudo wipefs -a /dev/mmcblk0
sudo parted /dev/mmcblk0 -- mklabel gpt
sudo parted /dev/mmcblk0 -- mkpart idbloader 64s 16383s # say Ignore to alightment optimization
sudo parted /dev/mmcblk0 -- mkpart uboot 16384s 32767s
sudo parted /dev/mmcblk0 -- mkpart boot 32768s 16809983s
sudo parted /dev/mmcblk0 -- mkpart primary 16809984s 100%
sudo parted /dev/mmcblk0 -- set 3 boot on

• setup luks https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html#sec-luks-file-systems

sudo cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/mmcblk0p4
sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/mmcblk0p4 crypted
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/crypted
sudo mount /dev/mapper/crypted /mnt
sudo mkdir /mnt/boot
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p3 /mnt/boot

• setup boot partition

sudo mkfs.fat /dev/mmcblk0p3
sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p3 /mnt/boot

• copy over the bootloaders

sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk1p1 of=/dev/mccblk0p1 bs=512 && sync
sudo dd if=/dev/mmcblk1p2 of=/dev/mccblk0p2 bs=512 && sync

• generate the config

sudo nixos-generate-config --root /mnt

• ensure openssh and user are set in configuration.nix

/mnt/etc/nixos/configuration.nix

• install

sudo nixos-install

• ensure we can ssh in

sudo cp -a /home/nixos/.ssh /mnt/home/eva/.ssh

TODO: ensure ssh auth keys are set on new install

TODO: had to explicitly set the latest kernel to get 6.12 with support with this board

boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_latest;

had to explicitly set the dtb to use

hardware.deviceTree.name = "rockchip/rk3588-friendlyelec-cm3588-nas.dtb";

after reboot, had to set the time, otherwise nixos-rebuild would fail

date -s "22 JUL 2025 18:00:00"

had to enable our ethernet module in initrd

boot.initrd.availableKernelModules = ["r8169"];

setup luks and format data disks

sudo nix --experimental-features "nix-command flakes" run github:nix-community/disko/latest -- --mode destroy,format,mount ~/prawnix/hosts/solidsnake/data-disks.nix

backup luks headers for rootfs and data disks

sudo cryptsetup luksHeaderBackup /dev/mmcblk0p4 --header-backup-file luks_header.bin