NixOS development progress for 22.05

Here’s a short summary on what I’ve been working on since the last 21.11 NixOS release. There are some new programs and modules in the repository which are worth noting.

New apps and drivers

• The script orjail let you easily run any application in an isolated network which will tunnel all traffic through tor. Simply run sudo orjail chromium and you can browse the web with a new IP address. Of course in most of the cases it is recommended to use the official Tor Browser for various reasons.
• Sonixd is an alternative desktop client for several music or media server applications. I’m already using it to stream music of my Jellyfin server. It works really well and is quite fast. One thing missing for me is audio normalization support.

• The foo2zjs printer driver got support for hbpl1 printers. This enables me to use native printer driver for the Dell 1250C printer.
• A small script called wp4nix will hopefully get merged into master. It might help in the future to also package plugins and themes for WordPress beside the main WordPress package.
• linux-wifi-hotspot is a script to create wifi hotspots on your system and share your internet connection to other devices.
• A simple script called wl-color-picker will help you to pick colors on your screen as RGBA or HEX code. Compared to other tools, this script will also work on Wayland desktops.
• An other new addition: The Spotify downloader program down-on-spot.

Some apps I’m contributing to received updates and bug fixes: pmbootstrap, gnome-secrets, foliate, blanket, opensnitch, ocenaudio and cups.

New modules or updates

• create_ap is a new module which will help you to permanently setup wifi hotspots on your system.
• The nextcloud modul supports to create a local Mysql database automatically using the setting services.nextcloud.database.createLocally.
• Code cleanups for the Dokuwiki and WordPress module.
• You can easily run or try a local instance of the invoicing application Invoiceplane with the new module services.invoiceplane.

• A module for the simple mail server maddy is an other addition. I’m going to write an extended article on this as soon other module options get merged.
• The Linux application firewall OpenSnitch is now easy to enable with the new module services.opensnitch.

Hopefully upcoming changes

For the next I’m hoping to get popcorntime, NocoDB, Baserow and Onlyoffice documentserver packaged.

If you have any recommendations for new modules or programs feel free to post it into the comments :)