Hi, I am considering switching to NixOS and I was wondering what level of hassle I should expect for gaming.

I have been using linux for about 10 months so I don't know a lot yet. I am wondering if it is worth it to try gaming on Nix or if it is going to be way too much of a headache considering my limited knowledge.

I've had wildly different experiences trying gaming on different distros, and very differently from what I expected. It went from fine for a weird niche distro (antiX), to really awful for a distro supposedly "easy" and "good for gaming" (Manjaro 😑), to absolutely amazing gaming distro (Nobara), and finally to surprisingly good for a "don't try unless you are a Level 99 Tech Wizard dual-classed Zen Master you idiot" distro (Arch). So I really have no clue what to expect from Nix.

I really like Arch but my main issue is that I keep forgetting what I have already configured and how and with which settings, or I leave stuff partially configured because adhd then I forget it wasn't finished and where I was at, so using config files instead sound insanely more convenient and I've been wanting to try Nix for a while.

I'd be really glad for anyone willing to share their experience of gaming on Nix 🙂

I have started using NixOS recently and I am just now creating conventions to use in my config.

One big choice I need to make is whether to include a unique identifier as the most significant attribute in any options that I define for my system.

For example:

Lets say I am setting up my desktop so that I am easily able to switch between light and dark modes system-wide. Therefore, I create the boolean option:

visuals.useDarkMode

Lets say I also want to toggle on/off Tor and other privacy technologies all at once easily, so I create the boolean:

usePrivateMode

Although these options do not do related things, they are still both custom options that I have made. I have the first instinct to somehow segregate them from the builtin NixOS options. Let's say my initials are "RK". I could make them all sub-attributes of the "RK" attribute.

rk.visuals.useDarkMode

rk.usePrivateMode

I feel like this is either a really good idea or an antipattern. I would like your opinions on what you think of it and why.

I'm working through some necessary issues in VMs as I work towards dropping Windows, but it occurred to me that I should pick a distro my non-techy partner could use in the event that something catastrophic happens to me. I really like the declarative/immutable distros, but perhaps something more traditional with btrfs snapshots would be better suited to such a use case...?

It's no secret that NixOS has a steep learning curve, but do any of you share a NixOS PC with family/partners/etc.? If so, what has that experience been like? Could they take over admin if you were incapacitated?

If given the option, which route do you go? I have services running in both, and I'll often just do whats easier. I dont really notice a different in performance the configuration for containers is simple enough I don't mind it.

I also wish there was a nix function that parsed a docker compose and used it for the oci-container config. Then I could use my existing compose files or the ones I find in docs online.

I'm attempting to configure an anonymized DNS service using dnscrypt-proxy2, routed through the Tor network. I believe I have everything needed for it to work, but that does not seem to be the case. The DNS resolution is fine, but it's not being proxied through Tor as desired.

 services.resolved.enable = false;
 services.dnscrypt-proxy2 = {
   enable = true;
   settings = {
     ipv6_servers = config.networking.enableIPv6;
     block_ipv6 = !(config.networking.enableIPv6);
     listen_addresses = ["127.0.0.1:53" "[::1]:53"];
     force_tcp = true;

     use_syslog = false;
     odoh_servers = true;
     require_dnssec = true;
     require_nolog = false;
     require_nofilter = true;

     anonymized_dns = {
       routes = [
         {
           server_name = "*";
           via = ["anon-plan9-dns" "anon-v.dnscrypt.up-ipv4"];
         }
       ];
       skip_incompatible = true;
     };

     sources.public-resolvers = {
       urls = [
         "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/DNSCrypt/dnscrypt-resolvers/master/v3/public-resolvers.md"
         "https://download.dnscrypt.info/resolvers-list/v3/public-resolvers.md"
       ];
       cache_file = "/var/lib/dnscrypt-proxy2/public-resolvers.md";
       minisign_key = "RWQf6LRCGA9i53mlYecO4IzT51TGPpvWucNSCh1CBM0QTaLn73Y7GFO3";
     };

     block_unqualified = true;
     block_undelegated = true;
     proxy = "socks5://127.0.0.1:9050";
   };
 };

 systemd.services.dnscrypt-proxy2.serviceConfig = {
   StateDirectory = "dnscrypt-proxy";
 };

    useDHCP = false;
    enableIPv6 = true;
    nameservers = [
      "127.0.0.1"
      "::1"
    ];
    networkmanager.enable = true;
    networkmanager.dns = "none";

  services.tor = {
    enable = true;
    enableGeoIP = false;
    torsocks.enable = true;
    client = {
      enable = true;
    };
  };

This idea is inspired by nixos-mailserver. It was so easy to spin up the mailserver after changing some DNS records and putting in some settings. I thought it might be a good idea to do the same for services that need public, decentralized infrastructure to support. Some ideas include

• Tor relay, or exit node
• Encrypted messaging nodes. It looks like SimpleX chat relies on SMP servers to relay communication
• Crypto miners (I know, I know, but you understand how it fits the “public contribution” usecase)
• Search engines like searxng (I currently use a public instance)
• Libredirect services, like proxy clients for social media

Maybe federated services, but those require more than just the software running on the public internet. Those require moderation and long term maintenance. Ideally, the services in this config would be ephemeral.

Does this sound like a good idea? Would you spin one of these up on a $10 VPS? I understand that this is the NixOS community, not necessarily the privacy community, but I figured thered be overlap.

What other services do you think would be applicable?

I want to install a package, I lookup for the package here https://search.nixos.org/packages? I can find multiple versions. two that sound right, two sound like rubbish and one is a plugin for something. How do I decide which of the two good sounding packages I should choose? What if the package or even both not work? How do I know that it is up to date? How do I know that it will be updated in a timely manner? Can I update it?

I've tried just about every type of setup I can find for a nix shell with python.

I don't want to purely use nixpkgs for a lack of some packages and broken packages. I'm trying to use pyside6, but not everything in pyside6 is provided by the package, e.g. tools like uic.

Attempting to use a venv as normal leads to a disconnect between the env and system with libstdc++.so.6 unable to be found. There are a various different flakes I've tried to use like the-nix-way/dev-templates#python and others from forum discussions which add stdenv.cc.cc.lib to no avail.

I think the farthest I've gotten is with poetry/poetry2nix, where auto-patchelf warns about missing libQt6 libraries. Running with nix run fails to 'find all the required dependencies' even when adding qt6.qtbase or qt6.full to the packages. This is that flake, taken from the poetry2nix github with an added devshell:

{
  description = "Python application packaged using poetry2nix";

  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    poetry2nix.url = "github:nix-community/poetry2nix";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, poetry2nix }:
    let
      system = "x86_64-linux";  # Adjust for your system
      pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.${system};
      inherit (poetry2nix.lib.mkPoetry2Nix { inherit pkgs; }) mkPoetryApplication;
    in {
      packages.${system}.default = mkPoetryApplication {
        projectDir = ./.;
      };

      apps.${system}.default = {
        type = "app";
        program = "${self.packages.${system}.default}/bin/app";
      };

      devShells.${system}.default = pkgs.mkShell {
        packages = [ pkgs.poetry ];
        buildInputs = [ pkgs.qt6.qtbase pkgs.qt6.full pkgs.qt6.wrapQtAppsHook ];
      };
    };
}

It seems kind of hopeless to get it working on NixOS. Does anyone have a working setup I could use for inspiration, or any other tips? I love the nix paradigm, but I'm honestly considering distrohopping with all of the trouble.