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GPU driver setup for Nix on non-NixOS Linux systems

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SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2025 Jure Varlec <jure@varlec.si>

SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
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# DEPRECATED

**This functionality is part of Home Manager as of release 25.11.** Not saying
that you can't use this repo, but up-to-date code is not here 😉

# GPU setup for Nix programs on non-NixOS systems

When running programs from [Nixpkgs][nixpkgs] using [Nix][nix], they will
normally fail to find OpenGL and Vulkan libraries. The reason is that Nix tries
to keep programs "hermetic", keeping track of all dependencies. However, this is
not appropriate for graphics drivers because they depend on the hardware and
must thus be provided by the operating system.

[nix]: https://nixos.org/
[nixpkgs]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs

[NixOS][nix], which is built entirely on Nix, solves this problem in a
particular way. Other distributions do not have the appropriate setup in place.
Consequently, programs run using Nix that depend on OpenGL or Vulkan won't work
out of the box.

This package aims to fix this by providing a NixOS-equivalent setup on other
distributions.

## How does it work?

This package builds a derivation containing OpenGL and Vulkan libraries. It then
installs a Systemd service on the host OS that runs on boot, symlinking these
libraries to `/run/opengl-driver`. This is the location where programs from
Nixpkgs expect to find them. Programs from the host OS know nothing about this
directory and are unaffected.

## How is this different from nixGL?

[nixGL][nixgl] is an existing solution that takes a completely different
approach. Instead of mimicking what NixOS does, it injects the needed graphical
libraries by exporting `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` into a program's environment.

This approach works well in many cases. It requries wrapping programs, but that
is a mostly solved problem thanks to wrappers provided with nixGL itself, and
the wrappers provided by [Home Manager][hm].

[nixgl]: https://github.com/nix-community/nixGL
[hm]: https://nix-community.github.io/home-manager/index.xhtml#sec-usage-gpu-non-nixos

However, it often fails in the important case of a wrapped program from Nixpkgs
executing a program from the host. For example, Firefox from Nixpkgs must be
wrapped by nixGL in order for graphical acceleration to work. If you then
download a PDF file and open it in a PDF viewer that is not installed from
Nixpkgs but is provided by the host distribution, there may be issues. Because
Firefox's environment injects libraries from nixGL, they also get injected into
the PDF viewer, and unless they are the same or compatible version as the
libraries on the host, the viewer will not work. This problem manifests more
often with Vulkan because it needs a larger set of injected libraries than
OpenGL.

That said, NixGL has an advantage: it does not require root access to the
machine.

## Trying this out quickly

To try this out quickly, just run the following command. Make sure to change the
version of Nixpkgs used to the one that matches your system.

``` sh
sudo -i nix --extra-experimental-features "flakes nix-command" \
    build --override-input nixpkgs nixpkgs/nixos-25.05 \
    --out-link /run/opengl-driver github:exzombie/non-nixos-gpu#env
```

That's all. Programs from Nixpkgs should now work. To undo this change, all you
need to do is delete `/run/opengl-driver`. **This happens on reboot**, so this
change is temporary.

## Recommended: use with Home Manager

Using Home Manager is recommended because it makes it straightforward to keep
the version of Nixpkgs used for drivers in sync with the programs using them.

To use, import the HM module from [`hm.nix`](./hm.nix). If you are using flakes,
you can use the following setup.

### `flake.nix`

``` nix
{
  description = "Home Manager configuration of Jane Doe";

inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    home-manager = {
      url = "github:nix-community/home-manager";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
    nonNixosGpu = {
      url = "github:exzombie/non-nixos-gpu";
      inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
    };
  };

outputs =
    { nixpkgs, home-manager, nonNixosGpu, ... }:
    let
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages.${system};
    in
    {
      homeConfigurations.jdoe = home-manager.lib.homeManagerConfiguration {
        inherit pkgs;
        modules = [
          nonNixosGpu.homeManagerModule
          ./home.nix
        ];
      };
    };
}
```

### `home.nix`

``` nix
{ config, pkgs, ... }:

{
  ...

# This option should be enabled on a non-NixOS system anyways.
  # It implicitly enables building of the GPU drivers.
  targets.genericLinux.enable = true;

# If using proprietary Nvidia drivers, set also the following.
  nonNixosGpu.nvidia = {
    enable = true;
    version = "550.163.01";
    sha256 = "sha256-hfK1D5EiYcGRegss9+H5dDr/0Aj9wPIJ9NVWP3dNUC0=";
  };

...
}
```

When switching the HM configuration, the activation script will check whether
the version of Nix GPU drivers currently in use matches the new HM environment.
If not, it will print a warning and tell you what to do:

``` text
GPU drivers updated, run 'sudo /nix/store/.../bin/non-nixos-gpu-setup'
```

To learn more about the Nvidia options, i.e. which version to use and how to
obtain the hash, [see below](#nvidia-configuration).

## A more permanent setup without Home Manager

This flake provides a package called `setup`, which is also the default package
of the flake. It provides a script called `non-nixos-gpu-setup` which creates a
more permanent setup. The quickest way to do so is to run the following command.
Make sure to change the version of Nixpkgs used to the one that matches your
system.

``` sh
sudo -i nix --extra-experimental-features "flakes nix-command" \
    run --override-input nixpkgs nixpkgs/nixos-25.05 \
    github:exzombie/non-nixos-gpu
```

Now, the OS setup will be automatically renewed on every boot. This is done by a
systemd service `non-nixos-gpu.service`. If you wish to undo this setup, simply
disable the service and remove it from `/etc/systemd/system`.

You will need to re-run this every time you update Nixpkgs.

## Nvidia configuration

It is **very** important that the driver version installed by this flake matches
the version used by your OS. So, this flake needs to be edited before use.
**This needs to be done whenever you update Nvidia drivers on the host!**

1. Either:

- Use Home Manager as described above and its Nvidia-related options, or
   - Clone this repository with `git clone
     https://github.com/exzombie/non-nixos-gpu.git` and edit the configuration
     file: `$EDITOR non-nixos-gpu/config.json`

1. Determine which Nvidia drivers to use:

- Set the version to the exact version used by your OS.
   - Get the hash of the driver file by running

```sh
     nix store prefetch-file https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/${ver}/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-${ver}.run
     ```

where `${ver}` stands for the driver version.
   - The above command will print the hash. Put it into the configuration file
     into the configuration file under `sha256_64bit` or `sha256_aarch64`,
     depending on your platform. For the Home Manager module, there is only one
     option named `sha256`.
   - Enable the Nvidia driver by setting `addNvidia` to `true` in the config
     file.

1. Now, you can perform the step in the previous section. Instead of
   `github:exzombie/non-nixos-gpu`, use `non-nixos-gpu` (or the full path to
   your git clone). Or, if using Home Manager, do `home-manager switch`.

You will need to update the configuration whenever the driver in the base OS is
updated.

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