[Nix-dev] optional packages for KDE

[Tony White]

2009/11/26 Wolfgang Jeltsch <g9ks157k at acme.softbase.org>:
> Am Donnerstag, 26. November 2009 21:41:09 schrieb Sander van der Burg - EWI:
>> I did not enable all optional features in some KDE packages. Some of these
>> are experimental and others I did not care about very much. NetworkManager
>> is indeed one of them, I was too lazy too look into that. Maybe it is
>> indeed useful to implement NetworkManager support in the near future.
>
> Yes, it would indeed be useful. Otherwise, I have to write config files for
> wpasupplicant by hand. :-(  And where would I put them if /etc is not a nice
> place in NixOS? ;-)
>
> Best wishes,
> Wolfgang
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Hi Wolfgang,
Create them in a folder in your home directory. eg
:/home/wolfgang/config/wpa_supplicant/wpa.conf then you don't have to
become super user to modify them, if ever.
You use similar to :
wpa_passphrase "mywireless" "secretpassphrase" >
/home/wolfgang/config/wpa_supplicant/wpa.conf
To generate wpa_supplicant's configuration for a wireless access point
in your hope dir.

I believe that :
networking.enableWLAN

Whether to start wpa_supplicant to scan for and associate with
wireless networks. Note: NixOS currently does not generate
wpa_supplicant's configuration file, /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. You
should edit this file yourself to define wireless networks, WPA keys
and so on (see wpa_supplicant.conf(5)).

Default: false

>From the nixos manual might be what you want.

Declared by:/etc/nixos/nixos/modules/services/networking/wpa_supplicant.nix

https://svn.nixos.org/viewvc/nix/nixos/trunk/modules/services/networking/wpa_supplicant.nix?view=markup

Although it needs improvements because using /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
is not ideal and the expression only works if you have iwlan0. Any
other device name will fail. So it doesn't cater for more than one
wireless adapter and the command to start wpa_supplicant doesn't
specify the -d switch, which should be wext by default because the
wext driver will work on all hardware.

The qt4 gui for WPA supplicant as Sander mentions is probably the best
thing to try first. Hopefully wpa_supplicant.nix will have more
functions in the future. It's actually something I want to hack in
future because I have a reasonable understanding and hardware to test
it on, if I can find time.

As far as the qt4 kde4 stuff goes, I don't think anyone wants a full
kde4 by default and there are things that won't work, like 3rd party
plasmoids because kde 4 has a complex way of updating it's dependant
software and configurations every time they change, which can't be
handled by nix (Yet.) Like it's menu cache and service & plugin paths.
http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tools/Using_kconf_update
So if you rebuild kde using nix, the location of say a shipped with
kde desktop wallpaper that you have set which is different to the
default kde wallpaper, changes. The configuration created by kconf
then points to the old location of the file in the nix store. If you
then garbage collect the nix store and optimise it, the file location
changes completely and the configurations generated by kconf largely
become invalid. So in that example the desktop wallpaper would not be
found and the desktop will display the default kde wallpaper instead
of the kde wallpaper that was selected.
So, if you can follow my explanation, you can understand the problem
because things like plasmoids can be configured in the same way.
So Google Gadgets might be difficult to make work but like it says, it
is an optional feature.

The network manager plasma widget is still in kde.org's trunk, it's
still quite basic and has not yet been released. I can't see the
urgent need for network manager in nixos because configuration.nix
takes care of things like that using upstart jobs, one central place
(configuration.nix) of configuration is how nixos works and relying on
point and click is largely a windows way of doing things for the
immature.

Thanks,
Tony