Why I Picked NixOS for a 24/7 Home AI Server, and the 5 Gotchas That Bit Me During Install

说明与用途

作者在无头 RTX 5090 服务器上安装了 NixOS，解决了 Wi‑Fi、btrfs 和省电模式问题，并获得了声明式配置和回滚的优势。

问题

Running a headless 24/7 AI server with a new RTX 5090 GPU required an OS that could provide declarative configuration, easy rollback, and reproducibility, while handling WiFi connectivity and power‑save issues during installation.

结果

The author successfully installed a headless NixOS server with an RTX 5090 GPU, resolved WiFi connectivity and power‑save issues, and achieved declarative configuration with rollback capability.

工作流

• Boot NixOS 26.05 minimal ISO and mount target disk with btrfs subvolumes
• Connect to WiFi using nmcli device wifi connect "SSID" password "pass"
• Copy NetworkManager profiles to /mnt/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections before installing
• Run nixos-generate-config and edit hardware-configuration.nix to add compress=zstd and noatime options
• Disable WiFi power‑save with iw dev wlp7s0 set power_save off or set wifi.powersave = 2; in configuration.nix
• Use sudo sh -c "cp ... *.nmconnection ..." for remote glob expansion

证据

I built a home AI server that runs around the clock, as a playground to mess with local LLMs.

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The ISO’s wpa_supplicant.service starts with -u (D-Bus mode, no -i) as an NM-only backend, so writing your own conf never grabs the interface.

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The WiFi connection info you set up on the ISO does not carry over to the install target.

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Average 83ms, max 257ms on a LAN. Normal LAN values are 2–5ms, so something was clearly off.

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Result: average 8ms, max 18ms — about a 10x improvement.

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