NixOS Configuration (Non-Flake)

A modular NixOS configuration for Dell XPS 15 9550, ThinkPad X390, and MacBook, built without flakes using Npins + Nilla + Hjem.

Stack

Purpose	Tool
Dependency pinning	npins
Project management	Nilla
Home configuration	Hjem + Hjem-Rum
VCS	Jujutsu (jj)
Editor	Nixvim + Emacs
Window manager	Sway (Wayland)

Hardware

Per-host hardware configs live in hosts/<name>/hardware-configuration.nix.

The Dell XPS 15 9550 (hosts/xps15_9550/):

• CPU: Intel Core i7-6700HQ
• GPU: Intel HD Graphics 530 + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (PRIME offload)
• Display: 15.6" 4K touchscreen
• RAM: 16 GB DDR4

Structure

nixos-config/
├── hosts/
│   ├── macbook/
│   │   └── configuration.nix
│   ├── thinkpad_x390/
│   │   ├── configuration.nix
│   │   └── hardware-configuration.nix
│   └── xps15_9550/
│       ├── configuration.nix
│       └── hardware-configuration.nix
├── modules/
│   ├── nixos/                      # System modules
│   │   ├── desktop/                # sway, cosmic, wayfire, xfce
│   │   ├── acestream.nix
│   │   ├── browsers.nix
│   │   ├── creative.nix
│   │   ├── emacs.nix               # Emacs + k380-graphite theme
│   │   ├── gaming.nix
│   │   ├── llm-agents.nix
│   │   ├── nix-settings.nix
│   │   ├── productivity.nix
│   │   ├── social.nix
│   │   └── terminal.nix
│   └── home/
│       ├── files/                  # Static config files
│       │   ├── k380-graphite-theme.el
│       │   ├── starship.toml
│       │   ├── sway-config
│       │   └── ...
│       ├── hjem/
│       └── nixvim.nix              # Nixvim configuration
├── xlibre-build-options/           # XLibre X11 server overrides
│   ├── driver-choice.nix
│   └── my-xlibre-xserver-build-options.nix
├── npins/
│   ├── default.nix                 # Npins loader
│   └── sources.json                # Pinned dependencies
├── nilla.nix                       # Nilla project root
├── shell.nix                       # Dev shell (npins, nilla-cli)
└── README.md                       # This file

Key Features

Desktop

• Sway with custom keybindings and status bar (i3status-rust)
• Ly display manager
• US / RU keyboard layouts with Caps Lock switching

Terminal & Shell

• Ghostty — GPU-accelerated terminal with amber/gold theme matching the entire setup
• Tmux — custom theme, Vi keys, integration with Claude / Codex / Opencode
• Zsh — Powerlevel10k, fzf, zoxide, eza, bat
• Nushell — structured shell with git aliases

Editors

• Nixvim — Full IDE setup with LSP, Telescope, Neo-tree, Treesitter, custom K380 Graphite colorscheme
• Emacs — Daemon mode, Vertico/Consult/Orderless/Marginalia, Evil mode, Magit, Eglot LSP, K380 Graphite theme

Themes

The K380 Graphite theme is shared across the entire stack:

• Nixvim (Lua highlights)
• Emacs (custom theme file)
• Ghostty (palette)
• Tmux (status bar)

Colors: warm dark background #28261F, gold accent #F0C040, sage green #A8D8A0, amber #E8A020.

System

• NVIDIA PRIME offload (Intel iGPU + NVIDIA dGPU)
• PipeWire audio
• XLibre overlay — custom X11 server build with selected drivers (see xlibre-build-options/)
• Bluetooth, NetworkManager, Power Profiles Daemon

Quick Start

Enter dev shell

cd ~/nixos-config
nix-shell

Update dependencies

npins update        # Update all pins
npins update nixpkgs # Update only nixpkgs

Build / Switch system

# Build only
nilla-nixos build

# Build and switch
nilla-nixos switch

# Or directly with nixos-rebuild
sudo nixos-rebuild switch \
  --file nilla.nix \
  --attr 'systems.nixos."xps15".result'

XLibre

This configuration uses the XLibre overlay to replace the stock NixOS X11 server with a custom-built Xorg. Driver selection and build flags are controlled in xlibre-build-options/:

• driver-choice.nix — selects which X11 drivers to include/exclude
• my-xlibre-xserver-build-options.nix — custom meson build flags

This is loaded via the xlibre-overlay npins input in nilla.nix.

Emacs Notes

Emacs is installed via pkgs.emacs.pkgs.withPackages with a curated set of packages:

Package	Purpose
vertico	Vertical completion UI
orderless	Completion style
marginalia	Annotations in minibuffer
consult	Search/navigation commands
which-key	Keybinding discovery
evil + evil-collection	Vim emulation
magit	Git interface
doom-modeline	Mode line
nix-mode	Nix editing
treesit-grammars	Treesitter support

The K380 Graphite theme file lives in modules/home/files/k380-graphite-theme.el and is loaded from ~/.emacs.d/themes/.

Note on emacs-lucid: emacs-lucid is not available as a top-level nixpkgs attribute. If you prefer the Lucid (Athena) toolkit over GTK, override pkgs.emacs with withLucid = true. See comments in modules/nixos/emacs.nix.

VCS (Jujutsu)

This repo uses jj instead of git for daily work. Git is kept colocated (.git/ + .jj/) so that Nilla's builtins.fetchGit still works.

# Commit (in jj it's just describe — files auto-track)
jj describe -m "message"

# Push to GitHub
jj git push --bookmark main --remote origin

# View log
jj log

Remote: git@github.com:yoptabyte/nixik.git

License

MIT — see LICENSE.