hallettj

I'm trying to set up Lutris to play games with Wine. I don't understand how I am supposed to install wine runners? Can anyone help?

Edit:* It seems the answer is to install runners through the Lutris UI as usual. The Lutris package runs in an FHS which makes everything work even though the runners are not built for NixOS.

It turns out that what I was missing (I think) was 32-bit DRI support. I enabled that with these lines in my NixOS configuration:

# in /etc/nix/configuration.nix

hardware.opengl = {
  driSupport = true;
  driSupport32Bit = true;
};

Everything below this edit is red herrings.

/end of edit*

I tried installing a runner, lutris-GE-Proton8, through Lutris itself as I do in another distro. That crashed with some sort of error - instead of spending time investigating that I thought I'm probably supposed to install things the Nix way so that dependencies are set up correctly.

I tried installing Wine from nixpkgs like this, and configuring Lutris to use the system Wine:

home.packages = with pkgs; [
  (lutris.override {
    extraPkgs = lutrisPkgs: [
      wine
    ];
  })
];

But when I start up a game I get a warning telling me that I need a version of Wine with esync.

I found a Nix expression for wine-ge in the nix-gaming repo. So I tried building Lutris with that. Here is an excerpt of my Home Manager flake.nix:

{
  inputs = {
    # ...
    nix-gaming = {
      url = "github:fufexan/nix-gaming";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };

  outputs = { nixpkgs, home-manager, nix-gaming, ... }:
    let
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.${system};
    in
    {
      homeConfigurations."jesse" = home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
        # ...
        modules = [
          ./home.nix
          # ...
        ];
        extraSpecialArgs.inputs = { inherit nix-gaming; };
      };
    };
}

And the my attempt at a Lutris config in home.nix:

home.packages = with pkgs; [
  (lutris.override {
    extraPkgs = lutrisPkgs: [
      wine
      inputs.nix-gaming.packages.${pkgs.system}.wine-ge
    ];
  })
];

After a great deal of compiling I believe that I have wine-ge installed... somewhere. (I did try to use the nix-gaming binary cache. I probably messed that up by forcing my version of nixpkgs. I'll probably let nix-gaming use its own nixpkgs version next time.)

I've read that the lutris package creates an FHS (Filesystem Hierarchy Standard) environment. That is a filesystem somewhere with the directory layout you see in other distros. I expected that wine-ge would be linked into the FHS somewhere. I had the thought that I would configure Lutris with the path to wine-ge. But the file browser that I get in Lutris seems to show me the host file system, not the FHS.

I thought that maybe I could give Lutris the store path to wine-ge. Then if when I upgrade I'll have to track that down and set the path again. Is there a better way?

I've been thinking about trying NixOS for a while. I think the concepts are elegant, and I have been finding Nix flakes to be very nice for software development. I'm about to get a new machine so I'm ready to take the plunge. Any advice before I dive in?

I'd like to set up Gnome with some extensions. One of the things I especially want to learn is how to set up graphics drivers, Vulkan, and Lutris.

For anyone who hasn't heard of it, Nix is a "declarative" package manager. Each package is stored with a hash that encodes its exact source, build script, dependencies, etc. You can have packages installed with mutually-incompatible library dependencies, and Nix makes it just work. For purposes of setting up per-project dependencies Nix does what Docker does, but faster, with more cache hits, and without emulation / containerization. If you want to deploy Docker images, Nix can build images that are more efficient than what you get from dockerfiles.

You can use Nix as an additional package layer in Linux, MacOS, or Windows with WSL. Think of it as an alternative to Homebrew.

NixOS is a Linux distro that uses Nix as its primary package manager, and uses Nix principles to manage configuration. Instead of running commands to install things, and then later forgetting what you installed or why, packages are listed in config files. The system installs and links packages as necessary. Anything you remove from your config is unlinked. When you want to reclaim space you can garbage-collect unused packages.

I'm moving soon and I won't have access to my desktop computer for a few weeks. I'm shopping for a laptop to continue my programming work during that time, and as a supplement for later when I want portability. Does anyone here have a favorite?

I made my own mechanical Bluetooth keyboard that I want to use; so I'm curious about 2-in-1 or tablet devices where the keyboard can be put out of the way, or even excluded.

I'm looking for:

• portability over power
• but enough power to run Rust Analyzer without being painfully slow
• high-resolution screen
• doesn't have to be the latest model

I'm a longtime fan of the Dell XPS 13, but I haven't tried any of the 2-in-1 versions. The Asus Zenbook Flip also looks promising.

I'm thinking of trying out Nix' remote builds feature to shift load away from the local processor and RAM. But I'm sure that won't funny eliminate the need for some local processing power. It'll be interesting to find out.