Another NixOS discussion

[artemKerimoff]

I should start by saying that I've reviewed other discussions and issues related to installing Sine on NixOS. However, for some reason, many people abruptly ended the conversation and didn't respond. I hope we can finally finish this topic here.

After completing all the necessary steps, there are no signs that Sine has installed: the settings menu still shows the old Zen Mods.

What I did:

Following the manual installation instructions, I:

1. Installed fx-autoconfig on NixOS.

# home.nix
let
  zen =
    inputs.zen-browser.packages.${pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.system}.default;

  zen-autoconfig = zen.override {
    extraPrefsFiles = [
      (builtins.fetchurl {
        url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-autoconfig/master/program/config.js";
        sha256 = "1mx679fbc4d9x4bnqajqx5a95y1lfasvf90pbqkh9sm3ch945p40";
      })
    ];
  };
in {
...
  home.packages = [
    zen-autoconfig
  ];
...
}

2. Opened the profile directory, and from there, navigated to chrome.
3. Copied everything from this fx-autoconfig chrome directory to the chrome directory.
4. Unpacked the engine archive inside the JS directory.
5. Cleared Zen’s Startup Cache
6. Restarted Zen

This is what my Chrome directory structure looks like now:

❯ tree -L 3
.
├── CSS
│   ├── agent_style.uc.css
│   └── author_style.uc.css
├── JS
│   ├── engine
│   │   ├── actors
│   │   ├── assets
│   │   ├── injectAPI.js
│   │   ├── plugins
│   │   ├── prefs.js
│   │   ├── services
│   │   ├── styles
│   │   └── utils
│   ├── sine.uc.mjs
│   ├── test.uc.js
│   ├── userChrome_ag_css.sys.mjs
│   └── userChrome_au_css.uc.js
├── resources
│   ├── userChrome.ag.css
│   └── userChrome.au.css
├── utils
│   ├── boot.sys.mjs
│   ├── chrome.manifest
│   ├── fs.sys.mjs
│   ├── module_loader.mjs
│   ├── uc_api.sys.mjs
│   └── utils.sys.mjs
├── zen-themes
└── zen-themes.css

13 directories, 17 files

~/.zen/p6pngndz.Default Profile/chrome                                                                                                                          12:48:57 
❯ 

And, if it's important, I installed the Zen browser via Flake inputs:

# flake.nix
{
  inputs = {
    zen-browser.url = "github:youwen5/zen-browser-flake";
  };

  outputs = inputs @ {
    zen-browser,
    ...
  }: let
    system = "x86_64-linux";
  in {
    ...
  };
}

P.S. I understand that you may be not experienced with NixOS, so I can help you understand some important aspects.

[CosmoCreeper]

Could you go to the settings page of Zen, press ctrl+shift+j, and share the logs from there? This will help me see if Sine or fx-autoconfig are loading at all and where to go from there.

[CosmoCreeper]

Okay. Please let me know where I'm tripping up because I don't quite understand NixOS, but basically, it looks like you're using the Home Manager setup for fx-autoconfig but on Zen:

Of course, yours is a bit different because it's for Zen, but I also noticed you don't have home.packages, instead you define zen and stuff. Could you explain that and are you certain that that would work?

[artemKerimoff]

Ok. In my setup, Zen comes from a separate flake input:

inputs = {
  zen-browser.url = "github:youwen5/zen-browser-flake";
};

In flake.nix I add zen-browser-flake as an input and pass inputs into Home Manager via extraSpecialArgs.

home-manager.extraSpecialArgs = {
  inherit inputs 
};

In home.nixI take the Zen package from that flake:
inputs.zen-browser.packages.${pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.system}.default
Then I create zen-autoconfig by overriding that derivation and adding extraPrefsFiles (the config.js from fx-autoconfig), and I install that exact overridden Zen via home.packages.

So conceptually it’s the same as the “Home Manager Firefox override” approach in your screenshot; the only difference is that the base package is zen from a flake, not pkgs.firefox from nixpkgs. That’s also why I’m not using programs.firefox.*: that module targets the nixpkgs Firefox package, while I’m actually running Zen.

[artemKerimoff]

home.packages = [ zen-autoconfig ] is in home.nix file

[CosmoCreeper]

Okay, so it looks like that would be set up correctly.

Go to about:config in your browser and search up:
general.config.obscure_value and make sure its set to 0.
general.config.filename should be set to config.js.
general.config.sandbox_enabled should be false.

If any of these are set to something else or dont exist at all, please let me know, as it seems like this would be the issue.

[artemKerimoff]

I found a issue thread where people were trying to install Sine on NixOS. They found a solution there.

I repeated this on mine (I also changed Flake and the Zen browser, as it didn't work on the previous one):

# flake.nix
{
  inputs = {
    zen-browser.url = "github:0xc000022070/zen-browser-flake";
  };

  outputs = inputs @ {
    zen-browser,
    ...
  }: let
    system = "x86_64-linux";
  in {
      modules = [
        ./configuration.nix

        home-manager.nixosModules.home-manager

        {
          home-manager.useGlobalPkgs = true;
          home-manager.useUserPackages = true;
          home-manager.users.artem = import ./home.nix;
          home-manager.extraSpecialArgs = {
            inherit inputs;
          };
          home-manager.backupFileExtension = "backup";
        }
      ];
  };
}

# home.nix
{
  inputs,
  pkgs,
  config,
  ...
}: let
  zen =
    inputs.zen-browser.packages.${pkgs.stdenv.hostPlatform.system}.beta-unwrapped;

  zen-autoconfig = zen.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: rec {
    libName = "zen-bin-1.17.15b";
    fsautoconfig = (
      builtins.fetchurl {
        url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-autoconfig/master/program/config.js";
        sha256 = "1mx679fbc4d9x4bnqajqx5a95y1lfasvf90pbqkh9sm3ch945p40";
      }
    );
    configpref = (
      builtins.fetchurl {
        url = "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MrOtherGuy/fx-autoconfig/refs/heads/master/program/defaults/pref/config-prefs.js";
        sha256 = "sha256-a/0u0TnRj/UXjg/GKjtAWFQN2+ujrckSwNae23DBfs4=";
      }
    );

    postInstall =
      (oldAttrs.postInstall or "")
      + ''
        chmod -R u+w "$out/lib/${libName}"
        cp "${fsautoconfig}" "$out/lib/${libName}/config.js"
        mkdir -p "$out/lib/${libName}/defaults/pref"
        cp "${configpref}" "$out/lib/${libName}/defaults/pref/config-pref.js"
      '';
  });
in {
  home.packages = [
    (config.lib.nixGL.wrap ((pkgs.wrapFirefox) zen-autoconfig {}))
    ...
  ];
}

And finally, Sine appeared on my system.

Everything seemed to be working, but I ran into a problem: the themes wouldn't install. I tried using the button and specifying repository links, I even tried cloning it locally through Git and importing it via the button, but nothing worked.
there is some issues when i tried to instal any theme.

At the moment, all the settings in about:config are correct.

[artemKerimoff]

also i can't even update it

[CosmoCreeper]

I posted a comment on the issue thread you found, which explains why the one you used works.

Regardless, the updating issue you are encountering is being fixed right now.

EDIT: I fixed it but sadly it may require a reinstall of Sine. Also I posted on the issue thread the changes that would be required to install that update.