hyprland-wiki/pages/Nix/_index.md

Table of contents

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NOTE: Hyprland is NOT supported on NixOS stable. It may (not) compile or work as intended. Please use the flake.

Install and configure Hyprland on NixOS

Make sure to check out the options of the Nix module.

With flakes

# flake.nix
{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    hyprland = {
      url = "github:hyprwm/Hyprland";
      # build with your own instance of nixpkgs
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, hyprland }: {
    nixosConfigurations.HOSTNAME = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      # ...
      modules = [
        hyprland.nixosModules.default 
        { programs.hyprland.enable = true; }
        # ...
      ];
    };
  };

Don't forget to replace HOSTNAME with your hostname!

Without flakes

{{< hint >}} If you're using Hyprland through an overlay, set programs.hyprland.package = pkgs.hyprland;. {{< /hint >}}

# configuration.nix
{config, pkgs, ...}: let
  flake-compat = builtins.fetchTarball "https://github.com/edolstra/flake-compat/archive/master.tar.gz";
  hyprland = (import flake-compat {
    src = builtins.fetchTarball "https://github.com/hyprwm/Hyprland/archive/master.tar.gz";
  }).defaultNix;
in {
  imports = [
    hyprland.nixosModules.default
  ];
  
  programs.hyprland = {
    enable = true;
    package = hyprland.packages.${pkgs.system}.default;
  };
}

Install and configure through Home Manager

You can use the Home Manager module by adding it to your configuration:

{ config, pkgs, inputs, ... }: {
  imports = [
    inputs.hyprland.homeManagerModules.default
  ];

  wayland.windowManager.hyprland.enable = true;
  # ...
}

For a list of available options, check the module file.

Modules mix'n'match

• If you plan on using the HM module alongside the NixOS module, set the NixOS programs.hyprland.package = null;.

• If you don't plan on using the NixOS module, but want to use the HM module, you will have to enable all the options the NixOS module enables.

• If you don't plan on using any module, manually enable whatever options the modules set.

Non-NixOS install

With flakes

First, enable flakes.

Once you have flakes working, install Hyprland through nix profile:

$ nix profile install github:hyprwm/Hyprland

Since you're using Hyprland outside of NixOS, it won't be able to find graphics drivers. To get around that, you can use nixGL.

First, install it, in the same manner you installed Hyprland:

$ nix profile install github:guibou/nixGL

From now on, you can run Hyprland by invoking it with nixGL

$ nixGL Hyprland

or by creating a wrapper script that runs the above command inside.

Upgrading

In order to upgrade all your packages, you can run

$ nix profile upgrade '.*'

Check the nix profile command documentation for other upgrade options.

Cachix

A Hyprland Cachix exists to cache the wlroots package and speed up builds.

In case you don't plan on changing the Nixpkgs input of Hyprland, you can use this cache to download the binary directly, instead of building locally.

# configuration.nix
{
  nix.settings = {
    substituters = ["https://hyprland.cachix.org"];
    trusted-public-keys = ["hyprland.cachix.org-1:a7pgxzMz7+chwVL3/pzj6jIBMioiJM7ypFP8PwtkuGc="];
  };
}