[Nix-dev] [nixos-0.1pre8369][newbie] - Switching keyboard layout in live CD system

[Heribert Slama]

Hello,

I'm new to functional programming, but I've read some papers on 
Haskell (never really used it) and I've some background in 
mathematics and formal logic, otherwise I wouldn't dare touching 
NixOS.<g>

What I expect most from NixOS: derivation of config files (/etc 
stuff) from Nix expressions. It would be great if Nix could upgrade 
the configuration of a package without bothering the user (while 
still carrying over user supplied parameters to the new version). I 
couldn't find anything about this topic on the website.

I've tried to boot from the live CD (i686). Hardware recognition is 
fine, even the ethernet card was correctly identified, IP-address, 
gateway and name servers correctly set by the ADSL router's DHCP 
server.

Then I got stuck due to my _keyboard_ layout - Swiss German - (TTY: 
sg[-latin1], X: de_CH. How can I switch a TTY's keyboard? (With 
Knoppix I use 'loadkeys sg-latin1'). The DE-layout is no big help, 
since many _special characters_ are assigned to different keys.

Finally about Grub: Since I want to keep my 4 existing systems 
(Windows 2000, Ubuntu 6.06, Open Suse 10.1, Fedora Core 6; all just 
for fooling around;-), I must install grub manually. This seems to 
be the default -
         boot.grubDevice = ""
Would it work, to specify
         boot.grubDevice = "/dev/hda10"
to install grub in the _partition_ boot sector of the NixOS file 
system?
I use a global instance of grub in a small partition which allows 
to select a system and _chainloads_ to it's (local) bootloader 
(also grub for the Linuxes).

Regards,
H. Slama

-- 
Heribert Slama
Muttenz, Switzerland