diff --git a/home/base/core/editors/neovim/default.nix b/home/base/core/editors/neovim/default.nix
index 2868a3ee..1467dd49 100644
--- a/home/base/core/editors/neovim/default.nix
+++ b/home/base/core/editors/neovim/default.nix
@@ -3,7 +3,6 @@
     neovim = {
       enable = true;
 
-      defaultEditor = true;
       viAlias = true;
       vimAlias = true;
     };
diff --git a/home/base/tui/editors/neovim/default.nix b/home/base/tui/editors/neovim/default.nix
index 14523833..6a49aa16 100644
--- a/home/base/tui/editors/neovim/default.nix
+++ b/home/base/tui/editors/neovim/default.nix
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ in {
       enable = true;
       package = pkgs-unstable.neovim-unwrapped;
 
-      defaultEditor = true;
+      # defaultEditor = true; # set EDITOR at system-wide level
       viAlias = true;
       vimAlias = true;
 
diff --git a/modules/base.nix b/modules/base.nix
index eb63882a..96e55c33 100644
--- a/modules/base.nix
+++ b/modules/base.nix
@@ -19,7 +19,16 @@
   # https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-unstable/pkgs/tools/package-management/nix/default.nix#L284
   nix.package = pkgs.nixVersions.latest;
 
+  # for security reasons, do not load neovim's user config
+  # since EDITOR may be used to edit some critical files
+  environment.variables.EDITOR = "nvim --clean";
+
   environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
+    # core tools
+    fastfetch
+    neovim # Do not forget to add an editor to edit configuration.nix! The Nano editor is also installed by default.
+    just # justfile
+    nushell # nushell
     git # used by nix flakes
     git-lfs # used by huggingface models
 
diff --git a/modules/darwin/apps.nix b/modules/darwin/apps.nix
index 06d4d2ae..9d19533d 100644
--- a/modules/darwin/apps.nix
+++ b/modules/darwin/apps.nix
@@ -72,10 +72,6 @@ in {
     {
       # Fix https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/wiki/Terminfo-issues
       TERMINFO_DIRS = map (path: path + "/share/terminfo") config.environment.profiles ++ ["/usr/share/terminfo"];
-
-      # for security reasons, do not load neovim's user config
-      # since EDITOR may be used to edit some critical files
-      EDITOR = "nvim --clean";
     }
     # Set variables for you to manually install homebrew packages.
     // homebrew_mirror_env;
diff --git a/modules/nixos/base/packages.nix b/modules/nixos/base/packages.nix
index c86ae126..3043bbd5 100644
--- a/modules/nixos/base/packages.nix
+++ b/modules/nixos/base/packages.nix
@@ -2,11 +2,6 @@
   # List packages installed in system profile. To search, run:
   # $ nix search wget
   environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
-    neofetch
-    neovim # Do not forget to add an editor to edit configuration.nix! The Nano editor is also installed by default.
-    just # justfile
-    nushell # nushell
-
     # system call monitoring
     strace # system call monitoring
     ltrace # library call monitoring
@@ -41,7 +36,4 @@
   # BCC - Tools for BPF-based Linux IO analysis, networking, monitoring, and more
   # https://github.com/iovisor/bcc
   programs.bcc.enable = true;
-
-  # replace default editor with neovim
-  environment.variables.EDITOR = "nvim";
 }