documentation/help: unclear how to use disko in a flake-based setup "idiomatically" about disko HOT 13 CLOSED

Here is an example flake: https://github.com/Lassulus/flakes-testing/blob/master/flake.nix
but agreed the documentation at this point is non-existent.

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This is the workflow is used in nixos-remote: https://github.com/numtide/nixos-remote/blob/f4235fead39ec6053eca4362008b4f626f9460f6/nixos-remote#L162

After using kexec it uses nix copy to upload and execute the script before doing the nixos install

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You can actually already use nixos-remote with the normal nixos unstable installer. If nixos-remote sees VARIANT=installer in /etc/os-release than it will not try to kexec again.

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@Mic92

Note that Disko will remove existing partitions!

Does that mean one needs to delete the import to Disko once the installation is over? I assumed Disko was declarative…

Only if you run the zap_creatE_mount script or the create script. you have to explicitly execute those. it doesn't automatically run on nixos-rebuild

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Any help to improve the documentation is appreciated.

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@Mic92 what kind of help do you need? I would like to be learn how to use this module so maybe I can contribute a few paragraphs once I understand it a bit better

Maybe you could start by stating how you expect a typical desktop user to use this. I have made a couple of successful installs using disko through a few methods learned from reading various issues here. I imagined that given a valid hardware-config.nix and disko.nix running sudo nix-install --flake .#hostname would "just work" and go ahead and create and mount the partitions I want. Is that supported?

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@aidenscott2016 disko, as I understand, does not yet perform any tasks while nixos-install is run. Disko exposes two scripts, disko-create and disko-mount, which need to be run before installing to prep the storage medium and place it where the installer is expecting.

You can see how I have used disko recently in this thread. There are likely many other valid usage strategies that can be used or could be explored.

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@Mic92 Thanks for the info (sorry for the belated reply, I kinda lost track, but am now actually deploying the next vps...)
I'm a bit under time pressure, but if/when I get some clean epiphany I'll consider if I can contribute to the docs as well...

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thank you @jackinloadup that's really helpful. I did manage to get it working for myself in the end after piecing together information from various issues. I hope to have some time in the next few days which I hope I can use to put some more words on the README at least. e.g. took me a while to figure out that lvm volumes are created in alphabetical order

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@aidenscott2016 Thanks.We hired also a technical writer to work on disko, but it would be great if you could put your text in some form in writing and than we can give it to them to improve (the technical writer is not an expert on nix/nixos). I might do this myself otherwise (I am mostly working on disko in my free time), but I am also in the process to document this project https://github.com/numtide/nixos-remote/

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..., but I am also in the process to document this project https://github.com/numtide/nixos-remote/

Small update: I did the last VPS deployment with my multi-host-flake and an adoption of nixos-remote which has kexec functionality removed, since I didn't want to risk failure because I have less than 2GB RAM (and I had a nixos live-CD already booted in the VPS). I quickly dumped the adaptation here

It worked like a charm.

I'm now doing pretty much all my server updates from my dev host with

NIX_SSHOPTS=-t nixos-rebuild switch --target-host $tgthost --use-remote-sudo --flake .#tgthost

while refining and committing the config

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@aidenscott2016 I started to draft out an installation tutorial. If you want to take a look: https://pad.lassul.us/MHuZ0A65Ru2cXoFNexsnTw#
Just feel free to edit (i.e. by adding a flake based workflow)

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@Mic92

Note that Disko will remove existing partitions!

Does that mean one needs to delete the import to Disko once the installation is over? I assumed Disko was declarative…

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