Engineering notebook — systems, games, and things I build to think.https://pieterpel.dev/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/dotfiles-4-what-i-publish-and-what-i-dont/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/dotfiles-4-what-i-publish-and-what-i-dont/The dotfiles repo is public and the services repo is not. Where that line is, the three reasons something ends up private, and what pushed pieces across it.Sun, 18 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pieterpel.dev/posts/dotfiles-3-every-file-the-same-shape/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/dotfiles-3-every-file-the-same-shape/What is actually inside one module: the two parts every file has, why the option is the interface, and how a machine ends up being a list of switches.Sun, 11 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pieterpel.dev/posts/dotfiles-2-one-flake-for-every-machine/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/dotfiles-2-one-flake-for-every-machine/My dotfiles repo builds a Raspberry Pi, a Linux laptop, two Macs and a VM, and the machines are not special cases. What the flake looks like, why no file imports another, and what that costs.Sun, 04 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pieterpel.dev/posts/dotfiles-1-from-bashrc-to-nix/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/dotfiles-1-from-bashrc-to-nix/The same job done twice: aliases and shell config as loose files, and then the same thing in my repo. For people who keep dotfiles in git and have never touched Nix.Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-5-watching-it-run/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-5-watching-it-run/A headless console fails silently. Its logs and metrics ship to the same Grafana as the server, so a dead service becomes a Telegram message instead of a mystery.Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-4-saves-follow-you/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-4-saves-follow-you/Saves and savestates are written to a store on the VM, over the tailnet and conflict-aware. The console holds nothing you would lose, and nothing goes to a third party.Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-3-the-library-lives-on-the-vm/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-3-the-library-lives-on-the-vm/The VM owns the ROMs, the metadata and the box art. The console mirrors that library onto its own disk, so a rebuild restores everything and a game never waits on the network to load.Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-2-it-has-to-feel-like-a-console/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-2-it-has-to-feel-like-a-console/Installing RetroArch gets you a computer with an emulator on it. The console is everything between the power coming on and the first game starting.Sat, 11 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-1-the-whole-picture/https://pieterpel.dev/posts/nixberry-1-the-whole-picture/A retro machine shouldn't be a pile of hand-edited configs you're afraid to touch. Here's the system I built so mine rebuilds itself.Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT