Atemu , 1 year ago

Any package can be “edited” using its overrideDerivation function. You can pass new configureFlags, buildInputs, a new src, etc. It’s all additive too, so when something else about the package changes in Nixpkgs, that’ll propagate to your “edited” package too.

Config files for some service at runtime and the packages themselves are two separate domains. The former is handled by NixOS. In order to “modify” the runtime configuration, you set options inside a NixOS module such as your configuration.nix. If you wanted to place a config file somewhere in /etc/ or configure a systemd service, you’d use the https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=23.05&show=environment.etc&from=0&size=50&sort=relevance&type=packages&query=environment.etc or https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=23.05&show=systemd.services&from=0&size=50&sort=relevance&type=packages&query=systemd.service options. They’re a bit like “primitives” as they’re rather low-level in NixOS terms but so is editing a config file in an imperative distro. NixOS modules usually use these “primitives” internally to offer more abstract options. services.paperless.enable internally sets up a systemd service via systemd.services which runs paperless with the declared configuration for example.