Dotfiles

I'm a first-year computer engineering student and this repo contains all the configuration files I use to set up my machines exactly how I like them for programming, studying, and my personal projects.

How it started

I wanted a single place to configure all my devices — my MacBook, my NixOS desktop, and my Raspberry Pi — so they all share the same terminal, the same editor setup, the same shortcuts, and the same look & feel. If a machine breaks or I get a new one, I can reproduce my whole environment with a single command.

Everything here is:

• Reproducible — one command and your machine is set up
• Portable — share the same config across different machines
• Easy to edit — all config files are in one place, plain text
• Understandable — organized so even future-me can figure it out

What's managed here

What	Details
Shell	Zsh with Starship prompt, autosuggestions, syntax highlighting
Terminal	Kitty with Tokyo Night theme and FiraCode Nerd Font
Editor	Neovim (Lazy.nvim, Telescope, LSP, GitSigns) + VS Code
Browser	Firefox with Tokyo Night CSS, uBlock Origin
AI tools	OpenCode
System (Linux)	Hyprland WM, SDDM, GRUB, NVIDIA, PipeWire audio
System (macOS)	Custom Kitty icon, fullscreen shortcut (Cmd+K), wallpaper

Machines

Hostname	OS	Architecture	Role
nixos	NixOS 25.11	x86_64	Desktop PC (Intel + NVIDIA)
macbook	macOS (nix-darwin)	aarch64 (Apple Silicon)	Daily laptop
tphome	Raspberry Pi OS	aarch64	Home server (RPi 5)

How it's organized

dotfiles/
├── flake.nix              # Entry point — defines all machines
├── flake.lock             # Pins all dependency versions
├── hosts/                 # Per-machine config
│   ├── desktop/           # NixOS desktop (GRUB, hardware, locale)
│   ├── macbook/           # macOS laptop (fonts, services, wallpaper)
│   └── tphome/            # RPi OS (Home Manager standalone)
├── modules/               # Shared logic (Nix expressions)
│   ├── home/              # Home Manager — user-level config
│   │   ├── default.nix    # Hub: imports everything below
│   │   ├── packages.nix   # CLI tools I always install
│   │   ├── shell.nix      # Zsh + Starship
│   │   ├── editors/       # Neovim + VS Code
│   │   └── browsers/      # Firefox policies & bookmarks
│   └── nixos/             # System-level config (Linux only)
│       ├── boot.nix       # GRUB, quiet boot, splash image
│       ├── networking.nix # Hostname, NetworkManager
│       └── desktop/       # Hyprland + NVIDIA drivers
└── assets/                # Raw config files & static assets
    ├── kitty/             # Kitty terminal config
    ├── hypr/              # Hyprland WM + wallpaper
    ├── zsh/               # Zsh aliases (eza, bat shortcuts)
    ├── starship/          # Starship prompt icons
    ├── opencode/          # OpenCode AI config
    ├── firefox/           # Tokyo Night Firefox CSS theme
    ├── grub/              # GRUB boot splash image
    └── macos/             # Kitty icon + Automator workflow

How it works

This repo uses Nix flakes + Home Manager to declare everything:

1. flake.nix is the brain — it takes inputs (nixpkgs, home-manager, nix-darwin) and builds all machine configurations.
2. hosts/desktop/ (NixOS), hosts/macbook/ (macOS), and hosts/tphome/ (RPi OS standalone) define what makes each machine unique.
3. modules/home/ is the shared core — the NixOS and macOS machines import the full hub. The RPi imports a subset (shell, neovim) without desktop apps.
4. assets/ holds the plain config files (.zshrc, kitty.conf, CSS themes, etc.). Home Manager symlinks them into place at ~/.config/.

For example, when I run darwin-rebuild switch on my MacBook, Nix:

• Reads flake.nix → finds darwinConfigurations.macbook
• Builds the system config from hosts/macbook/default.nix
• Imports my shared home config from modules/home/
• Symlinks all config files from assets/ into ~/.config/
• Runs activation scripts (sets wallpaper, replaces Kitty icon, registers the Cmd+K shortcut)

On my NixOS desktop it's the same but with nixos-rebuild switch, however, update command works on every machine as an alias for the proper command.

Tools I use daily

Tool	What for
Kitty	Terminal emulator (fast, GPU-accelerated)
Zsh	Shell with autosuggestions and syntax highlighting
Starship	Prompt — shows git status, versions, etc.
Neovim	Main editor with LSP, fuzzy finder, file tree
VS Code	When I need a GUI editor
Firefox	Browser with Tokyo Night theme
eza	Modern ls replacement with icons + git status
bat	cat with syntax highlighting
fastfetch	System info on terminal start
OpenCode	AI coding assistant in the terminal
Git / GitHub CLI	Version control

How to use

You'll need Nix with flakes enabled:

# On macOS (standalone home-manager)
nix run home-manager/release-25.11 -- switch --flake ~/dotfiles

# On macOS (nix-darwin)
sudo darwin-rebuild switch --flake ~/dotfiles#macbook

# On NixOS
sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake ~/dotfiles#nixos

On Raspberry Pi (Raspberry Pi OS)

Fresh install — boot, plug in, and run:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mtaibo/dotfiles/main/install-rpi.sh | bash

This script:

1. Sets hostname to tphome
2. Installs Nix via Determinate Systems
3. Fetches this repo via curl tarball (git not installed yet)
4. Installs Docker daemon and Tailscale
5. Deploys Home Manager (zsh, starship, neovim, eza, bat, fastfetch, opencode)
6. Re-clones the repo with git (for proper version control)
7. Sets zsh as the default shell

SSH access to the RPi

After the RPi is set up, run this on your local machine (MacBook / desktop) to generate an SSH key and upload it to GitHub:

bash scripts/setup-ssh-tphome.sh

Then on the RPi run update to download the key from GitHub and enable passwordless SSH.

Note: This is my personal config — hardware paths, usernames, and programs are tailored to my machines. But feel free to fork it and adapt it to you.