There is a strange tranquility that comes from knowing your entire workstation is described in code. No hidden state, no mystery packages, no "it worked on my machine."
Today's dispatch covers recent updates to my declarative dotfiles, switching between Wayland compositors, and maintaining reproducible development flakes.
The Window Manager Experiment#
Recently, I've been experimenting with dynamic and scrollable tiling environments like Niri and Umbriel. Instead of traditional fixed binary trees, an infinite horizontal ribbon brings a tangible mental model to multi-monitor workflows.
Compositor Observation
Scrolling tiling feels drastically more natural on ultra-wide panels. Windows remain at their ideal column widths without manual resizing gymnastics.
Current Desktop Stack Comparison
| Component | Choice | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| OS | NixOS Unstable | Flake locks + atomic rollbacks |
| Shell | Fish + Starship | Minimal latency, zero-config completion |
| Browser | Chromium / Firefox | Keyboard navigation, developer tools |
| Editor | Neovim + Helix | Modal editing speed |
| Terminal | Ghostty / Foot | GPU acceleration & low latency |
Callout Variations#
Here is how different callout types render for important alerts, security notices, and quotes:
Pro Tip: Garbage Collection
Run nix-collect-garbage --delete-older-than 14d bi-weekly to prevent store inflation while retaining instant rollback capability.
Warning on Proprietary Drivers
When updating kernel trees on hybrid graphics laptops, ensure your Nvidia/Mesa modules match upstream revision tags before rebuilding your generation.
Critical Rule
Never commit unencrypted secrets or GPG private keys directly into git-tracked flake trees. Always rely on sops-nix or agenix.
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"We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works."
Daily Tasks & Progress#
- Configure Paper-styled blog with Next.js 14 and MDX
- Implement Anime.js staggered entrance physics
- Enable Giscus comments on
rebizzz/rebizzz - Refactor Hyprland / Niri keybindings for multi-monitor layout
- Benchmark local LLM inference on Vulkan compute backend
Stay tuned for more daily dispatches.