Where's a good place to start? Some of the configs people are throwing about are quite involved and look like they need a bunch of specialist knowledge.
Thanks for taking the time to explain. Can't wait to start trying this out.
Then just start adding software that you want to be able to use. Search for it first in the NixOS options[1]. If you see it there, enable it and configure it using the options that make sense to you. If you don't see it there, search for it in the package collection[2], then use the name you find for it there to add it to `environment.systemPackages` in your `configuration.nix` file.
Just kinda take it easy and continue with that process until you have an environment that's more or less comfy. Then you're free to revisit your config and think about stuff like tying it in with your dotfiles, using Nix to manage your home directory, services you might want to run, etc.
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You don't need to do all three: you can skip the bootloader if you want to try something temporarily, and you can skip activation if you want to wait with that until the next reboot. There are also some changes that can't be activated without a reboot, such as changing the kernel.
> Does it take time/have to download things?
Building has to download or build stuff that isn't in the cache. But contrary to, say, Docker it understands the build graph, so it only rebuilds actual dependees.
Activation depends on how many services you've changed, and how quickly they restart. Updating the bootloader is nearly instant.