The deeper I get into NixOS, the more I question the choices of the NixOS community. When I wrote about partitioning disks in NixOS using Disko I provided an example of a basic linux partitioning scheme using ext4 partitions. Disko does the trick of partitioning the disk from a mostly straightforward Nix file. But what's the point of using Disko when it requires downloading nearly 200 MB of additional helpers to get the job done? Worse, you can't edit the disko.nix file later and hope to magically reconfigure or resize partitions.

It's no mistake that there's a large time gap since my last post about NixOS and using Disko to automatically partition disks. Understanding what NixOS is doing has been a challenge. Over the last month I've been making myself more familiar with NixOS by using a NixOS flake called ZaneyOS on my primary home system.

ZaneyOS provides a great configuration to jump into NixOS with the Hyprland window manager. After a few configuration file edits I booted up into NixOS and rebuilt into the ZaneyOS flake. Another reboot and my system was ready for me to log in and go.

I spend several days perusing the nix configuration files that make up ZaneyOS attempting to understand how they work. I wanted to know what was getting installed and how those packages were being configured. Mostly, I was lost. I realized it was time to learn more about this Nix language...

About a month ago I decided to spend my free time getting more familiar with NixOS. In order to install NixOS, I needed to figure out what Linux Partitioning scheme I would use. Rather than manually partitioning, I decided I would dive straight into learning Disko the declarative disk partitioning system.

Diving into Disko ended up being quite an adventure, as I suspect much of my exploration of NixOS will be. I'm not content to simple type magic incantations into a configuration file, but rather I want to know what each magic incantation does. Let me share with you my journey, what I've learned so far, and my Disko configuration.

I've been toying with a move from Windows 10 to Linux for my home gaming desktop for several months now. When it comes to Linux, I've relied on two distributions over the last decade or so: Ubuntu and Alpine Linux. Alpine Linux, in particular, I rely on when I'm building single purpose virtual appliances.

Recently, I've been experimenting with Arch Linux and NixOS. As I hop from distro to distro, I've become very familiar with partitioning disks. Determining how to divide up your storage feels like an evergreen topic. It was important back when I was installing FreeBSD 2.2.6, and it's important now. Or at least it feels important.

Here's some of my thoughts about partitioning a drive in preparation for installing Linux...

When I talked about IP addresses, I mentioned default gateways, but didn't go into any details about them at the time. The default gateway is one of the three basic network interface configuration elements of IP networking along with the IP address and the subnet mask. A default gateway is usually, but not always necessary to have a working IP network configuration. As I stated last time, you might know you need to configure a default gateway, but not why.

The default gateway is a host, identified by its IP address, on the local network to which you send packets when the destination address is not on the local network. The default gateway will then, hopefully, forward the packets toward the destination network. But what does all that mean?