TIL: Symlinking NixOS Dotfiles
14 hours ago
- The author avoids home-manager for dotfile management due to aesthetic and practical objections: dependency management complexity, single-user package preference, and need to rebuild system for config changes.
- The author prefers storing dotfiles in the same repository as flake.nix and symlinking them in place.
- NixOS does not natively support declaring symlinks for home directories (e.g., ~/.config), but systemd-tmpfiles can be used declaratively via NixOS configuration.
- The author contrasts this approach with manual symlinking or using tools like GNU Stow, noting the roundabout method using systemd-tmpfiles.