WordPress, automation, development, homelab notes, and practical tech workflows.
Moving into Niri & DankMaterialShell in NixOS
I had been looking at Niri while testing CachyOS. It gave me the satisfaction of a calm, keyboard-friendly Wayland desktop, and that thought stuck with me. Over the next few weeks, I kept thinking about one practical question: How could I rebuild this workflow from my NixOS configuration with DMS and Niri, without recreating the same problems along the way? Niri is the compositor; it decides where windows live. DankMaterialShell, usually shortened to DMS, is the friendly layer around it: panel, launcher, notifications, settings, lock screen integration, wallpaper colors, tray, and a growing set of desktop conveniences. ...
How I Manage Multiple Docker Hosts with Komodo, GitHub in a Single Dashboard
Managing one Docker host is easy. Managing four of them is where the small and crazy annoyances start multiplying. One host has a Compose file under /opt. Another has everything under /home/.../docker. A storage box (NAS) has its own container manager. One machine stays on all the time. Another sleeps every night. Updates are easy until you forget which host owns which stack, which Compose file created it, and whether clicking an “update” button actually recreated the Compose project or only replaced a container underneath it. ...
How I Run Affinity V2 on NixOS with affinity-nix
I have owned the Affinity V2 Universal License for a while, and I still had the complete Windows installations for Photo 2, Designer 2, and Publisher 2 on one of the Windows drive. They were surprisingly portable on Windows. I had previously reinstalled Windows 11, opened the applications from their old location, entered my license details, and moved on using them. Linux was the more interesting question. Could I run Affinity Photo 2 properly on NixOS without turning the machine into a science project of Wine-prefix six months later? ...
Install the ChatGPT and Codex Desktop App Declaratively on NixOS
I wanted to use the ChatGPT/Codex desktop application natively, which worked on NixOS with one command: NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1 nix run --impure github:numtide/llm-agents.nix#chatgptThat was temporary testing, but it was not how I wanted to keep it. My workstation is configured declaratively. If an application becomes part of my normal workflow, I want to put it in the NixOS configuration - not hidden inside terminal history as a command, which would be difficult to remember later on. ...
Use Elgato Wave:3 on Linux with Noise Reduction, EQ, Compression and a Virtual Microphone
The Elgato Wave:3 works surprisingly well on Linux as a normal USB microphone. The problem is that the microphone is only half of what makes the Wave setup useful on Windows. The other half is the Wave Link app. On Windows, Elgato gives you microphone processing, VST effects, routing, noise reduction, and separate virtual devices. On Linux, you can plug the Wave:3 in and record from it, but there is no official Wave Link application waiting for you, nor will there be any. ...