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howtos: expand using the nixos installer and fixups for using own kexec image

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[Using nixos-anywhere without flakes](#using-nixos-anywhere-without-flakes)
TODO: Add more topics
## Installing on a machine with no operating system
TODO: Still to be documented
If your machine does not run any operating system, you can boot the standard
NixOS installer using a USB or netboot. Detailed instructions on how to do this
can be found in the
[NixOS installation guide](https://nixos.org/manual/nixos/stable/index.html#sec-booting-from-usb).
Include:
When you're using `nixos-anywhere`, it will detect a NixOS installer by checking
if the `/etc/os-release` file contains the identifier `VARIANT=installer`
(available since NixOS 23.05). If an installer is detected, `nixos-anywhere`
will not attempt to kexec into its own image. This is particularly useful for
targets that do not have enough RAM for kexec or do not support kexec.
`nixos-anywhere` can detect a nixos installer if it contains the
identifier `VARIANT=installer` in its `/etc/os-release` file. This is the case
for the nixos-unstable installer and will be also part of nixos 23.05. If an
installer is detected `nixos-anywhere` will not try to kexec into its own image.
NixOS starts an SSH server on the installer by default, but you need to set a
password in order to access it. To set a password for the `nixos` user, run the
following command in a terminal on the NixOS machine:
```
passwd
```
If you don't know the IP address of the installer on your network, you can find
it by running the following command:
```
$ ip addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 52:54:00:12:34:56 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enp0s3
altname ens3
inet 10.0.2.15/24 brd 10.0.2.255 scope global dynamic noprefixroute eth0
valid_lft 86385sec preferred_lft 75585sec
inet6 fec0::5054:ff:fe12:3456/64 scope site dynamic mngtmpaddr noprefixroute
valid_lft 86385sec preferred_lft 14385sec
inet6 fe80::5054:ff:fe12:3456/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
```
This will display the IP addresses assigned to your network interface(s),
including the IP address of the installer. In the example output below, the
installer's IP address is `10.0.2.15`, `fec0::5054:ff:fe12:3456`, and
`fe80::5054:ff:fe12:3456%eth0`:
To test if you can connect and your password works, you can use the following
SSH command (replace the IP address with your own):
```
ssh -v nixos@fec0::5054:ff:fe12:3456
```
You can then use the IP address and other parameters in nixos-anywhere, like
this:
```
nixos-anywhere --flake '.#' nixos@fec0::5054:ff:fe12:3456
```
## Using your own kexec image
By default `nixos-anywhere` will download the kexec image
from [here](https://github.com/nix-community/nixos-images#kexec-tarballs). It is
also possible to provide your own by using the command line switch `--kexec` to
specify the image file. The image will then be uploaded prior to executing.
By default, nixos-anywhere downloads the kexec image from the off
[NixOS images repository](https://github.com/nix-community/nixos-images#kexec-tarballs).
However, you can provide your own kexec image file if desired. To do this, use
the `--kexec` command line switch followed by the path to your image file. The
image will be uploaded prior to execution.
Here's an example command that demonstrates how to use a custom kexec image with
`nixos-anywhere` for aarch64 instead of the default `x86_64` architecture:
```
nixos-anywhere \
--kexec "$(nix build --print-out-paths github:nix-community/nixos-images#packages.x86_64-linux.kexec-installer-noninteractive-nixos-unstable)/nixos-kexec-installer-noninteractive-x86_64-linux.tar.gz" \
--kexec "$(nix build --print-out-paths github:nix-community/nixos-images#packages.aarch64-linux.kexec-installer-noninteractive-nixos-unstable)/nixos-kexec-installer-noninteractive-aarch64-linux.tar.gz" \
--flake 'github:your-user/your-repo#your-system' \
root@yourip
```
This is particularly useful for distributions like aarch64-linux, where there is
no pre-build image. The following example assumes that your local machine can
build for aarch64-linux either natively or through a remote builder
Make sure to replace `github:your-user/your-repo#your-system` with the
appropriate Flake URL representing your NixOS configuration.
## Using nixos-anywhere without flakes
This is particularly useful for architectures other than `x86_64`, where there
is no pre-build image.
TODO: Add content
```
The example above assumes that your local machine can build for aarch64 either
natively, through a remote builder or by emulating the architecture with qemu
with the following NixOS configuration:
```nix
{
boot.binfmt.emulatedSystems = [ "aarch64-linux" ];
}
```