Author Topic: NixOS on the Gemini - GPU / WiFi / most peripherals working  (Read 625 times)

cjdell

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NixOS on the Gemini - GPU / WiFi / most peripherals working
« on: September 16, 2026, 03:44:15 am »
Wanted to bring some attention to a side project that has been a focus of my time recently. As with many, my Gemini PDA has been stuck in a drawer for a few years. Now I'm starting to use it again with a modern Linux 6.6 kernel and GNOME desktop.

A lot of the work has been done with local-LLMs over a 2 week period analysing and porting the original 3.18 kernel. I know that's not everyone's cup of tea, but if that doesn't bother you then the source is here, and should be completely reproducible on any system with the Nix package manager installed (NixOS not required).

https://github.com/cjdell/gemini-nixos

If there is enough interest I may make ROM images available for people to download and flash using existing tooling. It is still a work-in-progress however most things work, including a sleep mode and battery management.

There is still a risk the battery voltage could fall below a safe level (happened to me). So stay plugged in for now, and monitor the voltage using `gemcli` (a useful tool that manages all device specific hardware).

Feedback is welcome. I must admit I am quite proud of what has been achieved in very little time.

a1astair

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Re: NixOS on the Gemini - GPU / WiFi / most peripherals working
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2026, 02:19:00 am »
I am super interested in this.

Having a lot of trouble trying to get a modern Linux distro installed on my Gemini and this seems a great alternative.

I would be willing to be an independent tester for you, so please feel free to share installation packages.

I have a Gemini with 4G, although I only use WiFi.

Alastair

Klug

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Re: NixOS on the Gemini - GPU / WiFi / most peripherals working
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2026, 03:37:09 am »
Terrific.
Super interested too.

I see nothing in the the repo about the 4G modem.
Chris, is your Gemini WiFi only?

I started Claude on the driver.

grw

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Re: NixOS on the Gemini - GPU / WiFi / most peripherals working
« Reply #3 on: Today at 10:52:49 am »
very cool! i also started a similar project, my trees are here:

https://github.com/georgewhewell/nixos-gemini/
https://github.com/georgewhewell/linux-gemini/

main differences seem to be:

my boot chain is LK -> uboot -> systemd-boot -> EFI - it should be able to boot any distro with uefi images like this
i targetted linux 7.2 (the new `dmabuf` is useful for some things- e.g video encoder/decoder)
i targetted regular nixos, not nixos-mobile

hardware: i had codex write a driver for the cellular- it boots/scans and can see LTE network, i didnt try attach yet