This is to document my installation process of NixOS. I think that installing without the graphical installation is good practice. Installing without a graphical tool also makes it easier to repair your install in case something breaks.
Doing it without a graphical install also gives you more control over partitions and lets you ensure that your system is set up exactly as you want it.
This guide is specifically my install. I have LUKS encryption, so if you want to adapt this, it will probably look different.
Note: This does not handle impermanence. You’ll need to add another subvolume if you want to match my setup.
Steps
Step 1: Partition the Disks
When mounting, make sure to mkdir it first. If you’re using a DE you probably need to use sudo for everything.
Go to gparted. Partitions are:
-
= 512 mb fat32, flag as boot. If you have the space I recommend 750mb to 1gb. Especially if you’re going to be trying out different kernels and different GPU drivers. (This will be where initramfs will be).
- Whatever size lvm2 (I don’t think it needs to be this, since LUKS will overwrite it).
Step 2: Generate Config and Installation
# Setup LUKS with a password
cryptsetup luksFormat <LVM2_THING_PARTITIONED_ABOVE>
# Open it up to `/dev/mapper/cryptroot`
cryptsetup luksOpen <LVM2_THING_PARTITIONED_ABOVE> cryptroot
mount /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
# Create the subvolumes
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/@
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/@nix
btrfs subvolume create /mnt/@home
# umount `/mnt`
mount -o compress=zstd,noatime,subvol=@ /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
mkdir /mnt/nix
mount -o compress=zstd,noatime,subvol=@nix /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
mkdir /mnt/home
mount -o compress=zstd,noatime,subvol=@home /dev/mapper/cryptroot /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount <BOOT_PARTITION> /mnt/boot
# Generate configuration. This will *not* keep mount parameters,
# so make sure to edit it with the ones you want
nixos-generate-config --root /mnt
# Edit configuration.nix/hardware configuration. I had a duplicate boot,
# but deleting it fixed it. If you're using a pre-built flake here,
# things will be a lot different.
vim /mnt/etc/configuration.nix
nixos-install