%entities; ]> The easiest way to get started is if the machine is already in Vuizvui so there is a channel available. You can have a look at the list of channels to check whether a channel exists for the machine you want to install. So let's say you want to install the machine schnurrkadse which has the channel attribute channels.machines.sternenseemann.schnurrkadse First you need to add the channel for the root user of your current system using the following commands: nix-channel --add vuizvui nix-channel --remove nixos # otherwise it will interfere with the rebuild nix-channel --update Notice the vuizvui argument at the end of the first command. This makes the channel available as <vuizvui> in the search path of the current system. For the first installation the NIX_PATH isn't correctly set and will be set to include the vuizvui channel after you've switched to the configuration for the first time. Next put the following in your /etc/nixos/configuration.nix: (import <vuizvui/machines>).sternenseemann.schnurrkadse.config Of course you need to replace sternenseemann.schnurrkadse with the attribute of your machine. Now in order to do the first build and activation of the configuration, you need to issue the following command as root: nixos-rebuild \ -I nixpkgs=/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/vuizvui/nixpkgs \ --option binary-cache-public-keys "headcounter.org:/7YANMvnQnyvcVB6rgFTdb8p5LG1OTXaO+21CaOSBzg=" \ switch We redefine nixpkgs here, because vuizvui brings its own nixpkgs that gets build on the hydra, using it we get to download from the binary cache. Additionally, we need to manually specify the public key for the headcounter.org hydra.