DB‑Main Nix Wrapper

Run the proprietary DB‑Main modeling tool on NixOS with zero manual setup the Nix way.

⚠️ Important - License acceptance

By downloading and using this wrapper (which automatically fetches DB‑Main from the official site), you agree to the following clauses provided by the University of Namur:

• DB‑MAIN can not be redistributed to third parties.
• The University of Namur declines any responsibility for the installation, use or uninstallation of DB‑Main.
• The University of Namur is the exclusive owner of the DB‑Main software.

This wrapper does not redistribute DB‑Main. It only downloads the official tarball from the university’s server. You must accept the license terms of DB‑Main itself.

✨ Features

• One‑command install – nix run github:szyroi/nix-db-main
• Automatic download – fetches the official Linux tarball
• Self‑contained – extracts to ~/.local/share/db-main on first run
• All dependencies included – provides GTK2, wxWidgets, X11, GLib, image libraries, etc.
• Flake‑ready – works with nix run, nix profile add, or as a flake input

📋 Prerequisites

• NixOS with flakes enabled (or any Linux distribution with Nix and nix-command).
• Unfree packages must be allowed (DB‑Main is proprietary).
  Set in configuration.nix:

nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true;

🚀 Installation & usage

Clone the repository locally and install from the local path

git clone https://github.com/szyroi/nix-db-main
cd nix-db-main
nix profile add .

Install globally

nix profile add github:szyroi/nix-db-main --no-write-lock-file

Run directly (without installing)

nix run github:szyroi/nix-db-main --no-write-lock-file

Afterwards, just type db-main in the terminal.

🔧 Troubleshooting

Missing libraries

If you see an error like libXYZ.so: cannot open shared object file, the wrapper already includes a comprehensive set of libraries. Please open an issue with the exact error message and I will add the missing package.

Tarball download fails

The official URL is https://projects.info.unamur.be/dbmain/files/dbm-1102-linux-amd64-setup.tar.gz. If that changes, update the hash in default.nix using:

nix-prefetch-url --unpack <new-url>

GUI doesn't appear

Are you running under X11? DB‑Main expects a working X server. On Wayland, try:

export GDK_BACKEND=x11
db-main

No such file or directory

/init: line 11: /home/szyroi/db-main/bin/db_main: No such file or directory

Just add the nix profile.

nix profile add github:szyroi/nix-db-main --no-write-lock-file

With nix profile list you can see all installed nix profiles.

To remove the profile use nix profile remove nix-db-main.

📄 License

Wrapper code: MIT.

DB‑Main: proprietary software - by using this wrapper you agree to the license terms of the University of Namur (see above). This wrapper does not redistribute DB‑Main. it only automates downloading from the official source.