duckstation-unofficial: init at 0.1-9483

[ghost]

Context:

• Potentially deprecate or change source for Duckstation due to License Change #341915
• How to deal with license compliance? #342570
• duckstation: remove due to lack of viable upstream #430501

This PR adds the duckstation-unofficial package attributes which ships the latest version of duckstation under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 which is considered unfree by nixpkgs and thus will not be built by hydra.

My stance on copyright and nixpkgs has changed since I first started contributing as I've started reading more of the community's opinions and my own have developed. My current opinion is that we aren't in violation of any copyright statute by distributing a derivation build script to package duckstation. Upstream simply has no right to forbid the distribution of this derivation nor the right to prevent users from using it. Even if upstream decided to make duckstation closed source and all public links closed, we would still be in our right to distribute a wrapper over the publicly available appimage release.

When launching this package, one is greeted with a warning about using an unofficial build and directs users to the official releases by upstream, this warning can be disabled for subsequent launches.

Whether or not this PR is suitable to be merged, I'm still content with publishing a usable derivation builder for duckstation that people can use out-of-tree if they so wish to.

I've tested running my copy of Crash Bandicoot 1 using a CRT shader on Vulkan.

Things done

• Built on platform:
  • x86_64-linux
  • aarch64-linux
  • x86_64-darwin
  • aarch64-darwin
• Tested, as applicable:
  • NixOS tests in nixos/tests.
  • Package tests at passthru.tests.
  • Tests in lib/tests or pkgs/test for functions and "core" functionality.
• Ran nixpkgs-review on this PR. See nixpkgs-review usage.
• Tested basic functionality of all binary files, usually in ./result/bin/.
• Nixpkgs Release Notes
  • Package update: when the change is major or breaking.
• NixOS Release Notes
  • Module addition: when adding a new NixOS module.
  • Module update: when the change is significant.
• Fits CONTRIBUTING.md, pkgs/README.md, maintainers/README.md and other READMEs.

---

Add a 👍 reaction to pull requests you find important.

[ghost]

I want to work on adding darwin support (from duckstation-bin) as well as work on an updateScript that updates both derivations and the vendored dependents as well.

[ghost]

Removed the git workaround patch, duckstation doesn't require the git variables to be filled in and the only obvious change is that the window title and about dialog don't include the revision.

This allows for removing the deepClone argument and putting all the git related determinism issues to rest.

New Changes:

Added Darwin build (migrated from the earlier duckstation-bin package that was removed in tandem with duckstation) which uses the macos release from GitHub releases. Tested on M1 MBA and application launches correctly.

Added an update script which updates duckstation and all corresponding vendored subpackages.

[ghost]

Fixed: pname didn't match by-name directory

[ghost]

I added a new previous commit that enables building shared libraries for the spirv-cross package, this removes the package override needed within duckstation-unofficial.

[ghost]

Oh wow that causes a huge rebuild on darwin, force pushed to guard it behind a linux host. (didn't work initially because of me changing the postFixup phase, my mistake)

[keenanweaver]

From what I can tell, everything is working as intended. All options, cover art downloader, etc.

The only 'issue' I have is it is loading the wrong KDE style/Breeze theme in the file picker. To see it quickly, click System -> Start File.

This package:

Flatpak:

Probably something with my settings, but just wanted to point it out.

nixpkgs-review result for #433242

Generated using nixpkgs-review-gha

Command: nixpkgs-review pr 433242

Logs: https://github.com/keenanweaver/nixpkgs-review-gha/actions/runs/17046393147

---

x86_64-linux

✅ 4 packages built:

• duckstation-unofficial
• gpupad
• spirv-cross
• taisei

---

aarch64-linux

✅ 4 packages built:

• duckstation-unofficial
• gpupad
• spirv-cross
• taisei

---

x86_64-darwin (sandbox = true)

✅ 1 package built:

• duckstation-unofficial

---

aarch64-darwin (sandbox = true)

✅ 1 package built:

• duckstation-unofficial

[ghost]

New changes

• Added https://github.com/duckstation/chtdb as a new subpackage which allows for using cheats and patches within the UI and gets closer to packaging parity with upstream releases.
• Set PNG icon to 512x512 icon directory instead of erroneously setting it as scalable.
• Minor inconsistencies removed.

Please test to make sure that cheats/patches do work. I was able to give myself unlimited lives in Crash Bandicoot 1 and the UI reported cheats being loaded in.

[Erizur]

From what I can tell, everything is working as intended. All options, cover art downloader, etc.

The only 'issue' I have is it is loading the wrong KDE style/Breeze theme in the file picker. To see it quickly, click System -> Start File.

This is also happening to me under KDE 6.4 in nixpkgs-unstable. Other than that, everything else works fine, including cheats and shaders.

[ghost]

I believe this must be because Duckstation doesn't use portals for its file picker instead either calling the Qt file picker or using the gtk file picker because on GNOME I'm not getting the correct adwaita file picker.

Duckstation will probably never see a full wayland port given the project struggled with it for years now.

[ghost]

Force pushed and rebased on main

• duckstation-chtdb: 2025-07-13 -> 2025-08-28

[ghost]

I removed both calls to overrideAttrs for soundtouch and discord-rpc since it's #421201 (comment) discouraged within nixpkgs.

I'm still looking into doing the same for shaderc which requires migrating the patches for building the cmake package that was in the vendored source so far I'm getting stuck on CMake errors.

Updated to a newer release of duckstation and also updated sub-packages.

[ghost]

Closing in favor of #444821