Raspberry Pi Configuration with Nix

Nix is a powerful package manager and build system that provides a declarative approach to system configuration. With Nix, you can easily manage complex software environments, dependencies, and configurations across different platforms.

In this article, we will explore how to configure a Raspberry Pi using NixOS, a Linux distribution built on top of Nix.

Installing NixOS on Raspberry Pi

To get started with NixOS on Raspberry Pi, you will first need to download the NixOS image for Raspberry Pi from the official website.

Once you have the image, you can flash it onto an SD card using the dd command:

# Replace sdX with the device name of your SD card
sudo dd if=nixos-sd-image-<version>-aarch64-linux.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

After flashing the image, insert the SD card into your Raspberry Pi and boot it up. You should now be able to connect to your Raspberry Pi using SSH.

Configuring Raspberry Pi with Nix

NixOS uses a declarative configuration file called configuration.nix to define the system configuration. By editing this file, you can configure everything from the system packages and services to the network settings and users.

To configure Raspberry Pi with Nix, you will need to create a new configuration.nix file in the /etc/nixos/ directory:

{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  imports = [
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/installer/scan/not-detected.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/programs/bash-completion.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/system/activation/activations.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/system/backup.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/system/boot/boot.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/system/boot/common-configurations.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/system/boot/initrd.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/installer/cd-dvd/installation-cd-rom.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/installer/cd-dvd/installation-dvd.nix>
    <nixpkgs/nixos/modules/installer/netboot/installation-pxe.nix>
  ];

  boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_rpi;

  networking.hostName = "my-rpi";

  services.openssh.enable = true;
  services.openssh.permitRootLogin = "yes";
}

This configuration file imports several NixOS modules and defines a few basic configurations:

• boot.kernelPackages - Defines the kernel packages to use for Raspberry Pi.
• networking.hostName - Defines the hostname of Raspberry Pi.
• services.openssh - Enables and configures the SSH service.

After editing configuration.nix, you can apply the changes by running the following command:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch

This command will build and deploy the new system configuration.

Conclusion

In this article, we have explored how to configure Raspberry Pi using NixOS and the configuration.nix file. NixOS provides a powerful and declarative approach to system configuration, which can simplify and streamline the process of managing complex software environments and configurations across different platforms.