Add lnxlink to nixpkgs and docs for NixOS

[giggio]

When we are done fixing this NixOS related issues I'd like to contribute docs for the NixOS installation and maybe add lnxlink do the nixpkgs repo.

You can see in these 2 files the work necessary to get it to run:

First setting up the package, getting the executable to run:
https://codeberg.org/giggio/home-manager-config/src/commit/9f437b27901d2ee01e17b428e4f87aee1d8680ea/pkgs/python/lnxlink.nix

Then setting up the systemd service:
https://codeberg.org/giggio/home-manager-config/src/commit/9f437b27901d2ee01e17b428e4f87aee1d8680ea/services/lnxlink.nix

The service is looking good, when we finish fixing the issues I already opened it will be running fine. I believe you could also update your systemd service to better use the data, log and configuration directories as I'm doing in mine, plus the extra security features.

The package is taking a little more work than I'd like. I'm having to patch some of your dbus projects because the wheel and setuptools versions in nixpkgs are super new and conflict with your existing definitions.

I'm not a Python programmer and I don't know if there would be a problem removing that definition of maybe asking for a minimum version, instead of setting one up (like setuptools>=69.2.0 instead of setuptools~=69.2.0). I'm not even sure if that is allowed in the Python build tools.

When adding the packages to nixpkgs I can add you as a maintainer of the package in nixpkgs too, if you'd like. I'd probably need to add all those that are not there yet. Currently I am adding definitions for nvsmi, pyadmgpuinfo, dbus-networkdevices, dbus-mediaplayer and dbus-idle.

Also, for lnxlink I'm having to remove asyncio from pyproject.toml and requirements.txt. It seems it is not necessary to have them there, as they are part of the stdlib or something? Is that possible to be removed?

If those are added to nixpkgs, then running the service will be as easy as defining the configuration, something like:

services.lnxlink = {
  enable = true;
  config = { ... }; # the lnxlink configuration
  secretsFile = "path to your secrets environment file"; # optional
}

Maybe I could also add some properties to better define the setting that the user is required to set, we can discuss that later.

I can also then send a PR to your docs later.

Let me know what you think.
Cheers.

[bkbilly]

Asyncio didn't used to exist as a system library, but it seems that the python versions currently supported by LNXlink don't need this dependency.
For the setuptools, you should not have any issues installing the latest versions, though I haven't tried it myself.

I haven't used NixOS before, but I'd be more than happy to help you any way I can to add support for this.

[giggio]

Ok, I updated to the current HEAD and could remove the references to asyncio. But not the patches for setuptools and wheel:

  postPatch = ''
    substituteInPlace pyproject.toml \
      --replace-fail "setuptools~=68.0.0" "setuptools" \
      --replace-fail "wheel~=0.40.0" "wheel"
  '';

I get this error when this is not there (end of logs):

       > ERROR Missing dependencies:
       >     setuptools~=68.0.0
       >      wheel~=0.40.0

[bkbilly]

I am not sure if this helps, but I looked the nixpkgs repository and I found a random python package called jtbl which uses the setuptools and wheel dependencies, but in a different way. You can see this here:
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/by-name/jt/jtbl/package.nix

[giggio]

It seems that to use python3Packages.buildPythonApplication we'd need a setup.py file. Docs:

https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Python#Package_a_Python_application

Isn't there a way to say that the app depends on versions x and above, something like setuptools>=68.0.0?

[bkbilly]

I've pushed an update which removes the wheel dependency and uses setuptools>=61.0.
Hopefully this will make things easier to package LNXlink.

EDIT: I've also done this change on the other dependencies which I've pushed them to version 2026.7.0: dbus-idle, dbus-mediaplayer, dbus-networkdevices

[giggio]

Ok, I've updated my build configuration, it is much simpler now. I could remove wheel from the build and I don't need to patch pyproject.toml anymore. That goes for all your projects! Thanks!
Here is the current build configuration:
https://codeberg.org/giggio/home-manager-config/src/commit/d649dc957d540c5d010f99e816c36c51125d36c6/pkgs/python/lnxlink.nix

Build with:

nix build --impure --expr '(import ./python.nix { pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {}; }).withPackages (python-pkgs: [ python-pkgs.lnxlink ])'

(from the python directory and inspect the result directory)

Now, when the next version of lnxlink is published I'll be able to update the configuration to take directly from Pypi, just as I'm doing with the others. After that, I can send a PR to nixpkgs for the package, work through it, then after that is integrated I can send a PR to home-manager for service integration. And after that we can add docs to lnxlink on how to use it with Nix. It'll take a few weeks but it is going to be super easy.

[bkbilly]

The new build configuration seems much simpler now.
I noticed that the library dbus_notification is missing which I've also updated to the 2026.7.0 version.
I've released the version 2026.7.0 of LNXlink, so you can proceed with the rest of the process to publish this to NixOS.
Thank you for all your help with this!

[giggio]

Ok, I updated the service to the latest version and I added dbus_notification and it is working fine.
I'll start the process to include it in nixpkgs. Would you like to be added as a maintainer there?

[bkbilly]

I would love to be added as a maintainer.

[giggio]

Now that we've closed the last issue to get it all working, I'll start working on my local machine in a configuration that I can upstream to nixpkgs. I'm kinda busy with other things right now, but I'll get it done.
Thanks for all the support in all the issues I've opened, @bkbilly !

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[giggio]

I'll work on it.

[giggio]

@bkbilly I have an initial implementation, coming from this commit: https://codeberg.org/giggio/home-manager-config/commit/5811714b60ba81afeef229acb9f45683bea674ce

This is my usage of the module, so this is what would be needed for a user of lnxlink to set it up with Nix: https://codeberg.org/giggio/home-manager-config/src/commit/5811714b60ba81afeef229acb9f45683bea674ce/services/lnxlink/lnxlink.nix

This is the most important file to analyze. Do you approve the way I chose to set up usage?

Now, the implementation:

These are the packages I need to provide to Nix, besides lnxlink there are others: https://codeberg.org/giggio/home-manager-config/src/commit/5811714b60ba81afeef229acb9f45683bea674ce/pkgs/python/lnxlink

You are not a maintainer yet on these files because that will only show up when I send the first PR, when I'll update the maintainers nix references.

This is the service module itself: https://codeberg.org/giggio/home-manager-config/src/commit/5811714b60ba81afeef229acb9f45683bea674ce/services/lnxlink/module.nix

Let me know what you think, I can work with what you may need to improve.