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I've been on I3 with nixOS (and emacs as my go to editor) for a few years now, and it's a dream. I can carry my configurations between machines with almost no s

I've been on I3 with nixOS (and emacs as my go to editor) for a few years now, and it's a dream. I can carry my configurations between machines with almost no setup. Every computer I use is the same. I find Windows and macOS painful to use. Constantly hunting around for applications I have open, that requires me to remove my fingers from my keyboard and play around with my mouse. I barely bother to use tabs for anything (terminal or browser), just switch to another workspace and pop up another instance of FireFox or a terminal. TWM do ruin you though. Once you're comfortable in them, you'll never want to go back and so using somebody else's computer just feels alien.

ravi-delia 6y ago
I have to wonder if its even worth it sometime. Not really, I feel comfortable on my setup, but it really is impossible to use other people's computer now. Kinda like the Thinkpad mouse nipple.
siraben 6y ago
Ooh, another NixOS user! I'm curious about your setup; Do you use the same NixOS configuration across machines? Do you use i3 with another desktop environment or by itself?
- MarcScott 6y ago
  Same configuration across different machines (apart from hardware.nix). I have a configuration.nix, networking.nix and packages.nix that pretty much covers everything. Then there's my .emacs, bashrc and my i3/config files. There's probably a way to get those last three into my NixOS config, but I haven't really investigated that. I only use i3. Haven't found a reason to install another WM yet. I tend to use xrandr, pavucontrol and wpa_supplicant quite happily for most of the stuff people use a GUI WM for.
  - onlydnaq 6y ago
    > There’s probably a way to get those last three into my NixOS config There is, it’s called home-manager [1] and it’s a pretty nice way to manage your config files and user packages even if you’re not on a NixOS system. [1]. https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager
  - siraben 6y ago
    I see. I keep my Emacs configuration non-nixified but otherwise I use home-manager + stow for shell config and config dir stuff.
    - momentoftop 6y ago
      I've nixified my emacs configuration for a while now and, relevant to this thread, it's put up a bit of a roadblock for me trying EXWM (I'm a long time xmonad user). Changing my emacs configurations means restarting my emacs sessions in NixOS, and I don't want to have to do that if emacs is going to be my WM....

ravi-delia 6y ago

I have to wonder if its even worth it sometime. Not really, I feel comfortable on my setup, but it really is impossible to use other people's computer now. Kinda like the Thinkpad mouse nipple.

siraben 6y ago

Ooh, another NixOS user! I'm curious about your setup; Do you use the same NixOS configuration across machines? Do you use i3 with another desktop environment or by itself?

MarcScott 6y ago
Same configuration across different machines (apart from hardware.nix). I have a configuration.nix, networking.nix and packages.nix that pretty much covers everything. Then there's my .emacs, bashrc and my i3/config files. There's probably a way to get those last three into my NixOS config, but I haven't really investigated that. I only use i3. Haven't found a reason to install another WM yet. I tend to use xrandr, pavucontrol and wpa_supplicant quite happily for most of the stuff people use a GUI WM for.
- onlydnaq 6y ago
  > There’s probably a way to get those last three into my NixOS config There is, it’s called home-manager [1] and it’s a pretty nice way to manage your config files and user packages even if you’re not on a NixOS system. [1]. https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager
- siraben 6y ago
  I see. I keep my Emacs configuration non-nixified but otherwise I use home-manager + stow for shell config and config dir stuff.
  - momentoftop 6y ago
    I've nixified my emacs configuration for a while now and, relevant to this thread, it's put up a bit of a roadblock for me trying EXWM (I'm a long time xmonad user). Changing my emacs configurations means restarting my emacs sessions in NixOS, and I don't want to have to do that if emacs is going to be my WM....