Wrappers vs. Dotfiles
Usually user applications (like editors, etc.) get configured through dotfiles in the user's home directory. An alternative, declarative approach is to create wrappers for application on a per-user basis, like this:
{
users.users.root.packages = [
(pkgs.writeScriptBin "htop" ''
#! ${pkgs.bash}/bin/bash
export HTOPRC=${pkgs.writeText "htoprc" ...}
exec ${pkgs.htop}/bin/htop "$@"
'')
];
}
The disadvantage of this way is that it doesn't propagate man pages and other paths from the old derivation. Please refer to Nix_Cookbook#Wrapping_packages to possible solutions to retain all outputs.
You can use this simple function which takes care of wrapping the script & symlinking
writeShellScriptBinAndSymlink = name: text: super.symlinkJoin {
name = name;
paths = [
super."${name}"
(super.writeShellScriptBin name text)
];
};
Downside of the Wrapper Approach
- There might be applications that don't provide means to specify configuration. One could override
$HOME
, but then there might be applications that require$HOME
for other stuff than configuration. - Applications cannot write their configuration anymore, e.g.
htop
will just terminate without error and nothing changed.
Alternatives
- Home Manager manages dotfiles in the user's home directory