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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why is there a collision error when switching generation?

Home Manager currently installs packages into the user environment, precisely as if the packages were installed through nix-env --install. This means that you will get a collision error if your Home Manager configuration attempts to install a package that you already have installed manually, that is, packages that shows up when you run nix-env --query.

For example, imagine you have the hello package installed in your environment

$ nix-env --query
hello-2.10

and your Home Manager configuration contains

home.packages = [ pkgs.hello ];

Then attempting to switch to this configuration will result in an error similar to

$ home-manager switch
these derivations will be built:
  /nix/store/xg69wsnd1rp8xgs9qfsjal017nf0ldhm-home-manager-path.drv
[…]
Activating installPackages
replacing old ‘home-manager-path’
installing ‘home-manager-path’
building path(s) ‘/nix/store/b5c0asjz9f06l52l9812w6k39ifr49jj-user-environment’
Wide character in die at /nix/store/64jc9gd2rkbgdb4yjx3nrgc91bpjj5ky-buildenv.pl line 79.
collision between ‘/nix/store/fmwa4axzghz11cnln5absh31nbhs9lq1-home-manager-path/bin/hello’ and ‘/nix/store/c2wyl8b9p4afivpcz8jplc9kis8rj36d-hello-2.10/bin/hello’; use ‘nix-env --set-flag priority NUMBER PKGNAME’ to change the priority of one of the conflicting packages
builder for ‘/nix/store/b37x3s7pzxbasfqhaca5dqbf3pjjw0ip-user-environment.drv’ failed with exit code 2
error: build of ‘/nix/store/b37x3s7pzxbasfqhaca5dqbf3pjjw0ip-user-environment.drv’ failed

The solution is typically to uninstall the package from the environment using nix-env --uninstall and reattempt the Home Manager generation switch.

Why are the session variables not set?

Home Manager is only able to set session variables automatically if it manages your Bash or Z shell configuration. If you don’t want to let Home Manager manage your shell then you will have to manually source the ~/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh file in an appropriate way. In Bash and Z shell this can be done by adding

. "$HOME/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/hm-session-vars.sh"

to your .profile and .zshrc files, respectively. The hm-session-vars.sh file should work in most Bourne-like shells.

How do set up a configuration for multiple users/machines?

A typical way to prepare a repository of configurations for multiple logins and machines is to prepare one "top-level" file for each unique combination.

For example, if you have two machines, called "kronos" and "rhea" on which you want to configure your user "jane" then you could create the files

  • kronos-jane.nix,

  • rhea-jane.nix, and

  • common.nix

in your repository. On the kronos and rhea machines you can then make ~jane/.config/nixpkgs/home.nix be a symbolic link to the corresponding file in your configuration repository.

The kronos-jane.nix and rhea-jane.nix files follow the format

{ ... }:

{
  imports = [ ./common.nix ];

  # Various options that are specific for this machine/user.
}

while the common.nix file contains configuration shared across the two logins. Of course, instead of just a single common.nix file you can have multiple ones, even one per program or service.

You can get some inspiration from the Post your home-manager home.nix file! Reddit thread.

Why do I get an error message about ca.desrt.dconf?

You are most likely trying to configure the GTK or Gnome Terminal but the DBus session is not aware of the dconf service. The full error you might get is

error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name ca.desrt.dconf was not provided by any .service files

The solution on NixOS is to add

services.dbus.packages = with pkgs; [ gnome3.dconf ];

to your system configuration.

How do I install packages from Nixpkgs unstable?

If you are using a stable version of Nixpkgs but would like to install some particular packages from Nixpkgs unstable – or some other channel – then you can import the unstable Nixpkgs and refer to its packages within your configuration. Something like

{ pkgs, config, ... }:

let

  pkgsUnstable = import <nixpkgs-unstable> {};

in

{
  home.packages = [
    pkgsUnstable.foo
  ];

  # …
}

should work provided you have a Nix channel called nixpkgs-unstable.

You can add the nixpkgs-unstable channel by running

# nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable nixpkgs-unstable
# nix-channel --update

Note, the package will not be affected by any package overrides, overlays, etc.

How do I override the package used by a module?

By default Home Manager will install the package provided by your chosen nixpkgs channel but occasionally you might end up needing to change this package. This can typically be done in two ways.

  1. If the module provides a package option, such as programs.beets.package, then this is the recommended way to perform the override. For example,

    programs.beets.package = pkgs.beets.override { enableCheck = true; };

  2. If no package option is available then you can typically override the relevant package using an overlay.

    For example, if you want to use the programs.skim module but use the skim package from Nixpkgs unstable, then a configuration like

    { pkgs, config, ... }:

let

  pkgsUnstable = import <nixpkgs-unstable> {};

in

{
  programs.skim.enable = true;

  nixpkgs.overlays = [
    (self: super: {
      skim = pkgsUnstable.skim;
    })
  ];

  # …
}

    should work OK.