Closure size is too large

[chpxu]

Summary

The complete configuration will download at a bare minimum, 5 GiB, worth of derivations from nixpkgs and other inputs, with a final closure (installed) size of at least 10GiB.

Per update, i.e. when running home-manager switch and nixos-rebuild switch after nix flake update will cause at least 3GiB of downloaded packages and an almost 10GiB install size.

For the amount of programs I use, this isn't too bad, but there are ways of significantly reducing this size and implementing modularity. In terms of packages, the main culprits are:

• texlive-full
  • I use LaTeX on a daily basis and to have a quick and easy setup with VSCode, I install all packages on a home-manager generation. The closure size of this package is estimated at around 5GiB.
• Global Python Environment
  • Again, a setup for convenience in VSCode.

Remedies

• texlive-full

  • Work on rlt.sh (see repo) as an independent method to build LaTeX files on NixOS. This would create a customised shell containing all necessary packages and would reduce the necessity for a global installation.
  • Realise what programs (e.g. LTeX etc.) would function best outside of this.

• Python

  • Work on using direnv to create python environments for development and projects.
  • Realise what programs/packages would still work best globally. Especially necessary for VSCode environments.

• Remove unused programs

  • thunderbird(I tend to use web clients more)
  • xournalpp (I use rnote instead and it can open .xopp files which is all I need)
    - mathpix (for now)

More will probably need to be added.

Better ways to optimise this configuration must also be explored.

Package size reduce down to: 440 - 971 - 171
Update size reduced less than 100MB download for updating the nix flake inputs after 3 days.