We want to make Nix better
determinate.systems
We want to make Nix better
1–10 of 204 posts
Re: We want to make Nix better
#2With Eelco as a cofounder of DetSys, I feel really excited about where we're going here. I think the world is in many ways primed and ready for Nix, as long as we can help Nix "meet them in the middle."
We're working on making Nix more accessible and producing good and usable, production-ready workflows so teams can just pick it up and go. I'd love to hear what y'all think, to help make sure we're going in the right direction.
Re: We want to make Nix better
#3I hope this goes the way of RedHat/SUSE. i.e. The corporate side of a FOSS project so that contracts can be signed for appropriate purposes, etc.
Re: We want to make Nix better
#4I installed nix on my Mac but quickly backed out due to the complexity. I assumed the nix store would just be an ordinary directory with a tool for managing it, similar to brew. I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was too invasive for a tool I was unsure if I even wanted to use, so I uninstalled it.
What is the reason for all this machinery? I went with the recommended multi-user install, should I have just used the single user mode instead?
Re: We want to make Nix better
#5I installed nix on my Mac but quickly backed out due to the complexity. I assumed the nix store would just be an ordinary directory with a tool for managing it, similar to brew. I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was too invasive for a tool I was unsure if I even wanted to use, so I uninstalled it. What is the reason for all this machinery? I went with the r…
It's because Nix wants to install into /nix. Once upon a time doing "sudo mkdir /nix" wasn't a problem, but recent macOS releases have made that very hard.
Nix could switch to an alternate location on macOS (e.g. /opt/nix) but that has a lot of downsides for interoperability with other systems.
Re: We want to make Nix better
#6I installed nix on my Mac but quickly backed out due to the complexity. I assumed the nix store would just be an ordinary directory with a tool for managing it, similar to brew. I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was too invasive for a tool I was unsure if I even wanted to use, so I uninstalled it. What is the reason for all this machinery? I went with the r…
APFS volume is required to have a read-only nix-store at /nix. The daemon is only required in multi-user installation, and you can opt out of it (by using a single-user install). New groups are for letting people submit jobs to builders in multi-user mode.
Re: We want to make Nix better
#7I installed nix on my Mac but quickly backed out due to the complexity. I assumed the nix store would just be an ordinary directory with a tool for managing it, similar to brew. I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was too invasive for a tool I was unsure if I even wanted to use, so I uninstalled it. What is the reason for all this machinery? I went with the r…
It's because builds are completely reproducible, and therefore they have to be built in the same place (in `/nix`), and you can't create directories off of `/` on modern Mac setups.
Re: We want to make Nix better
#8I installed nix on my Mac but quickly backed out due to the complexity. I assumed the nix store would just be an ordinary directory with a tool for managing it, similar to brew. I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was too invasive for a tool I was unsure if I even wanted to use, so I uninstalled it. What is the reason for all this machinery? I went with the r…
> What is the reason for all this machinery?
Nix wants to use /nix, but Apple wants macOS to be locked down and secure.
The compromise was putting /nix on a separate volume.
> I discovered it creates a new Unix group, ... installs a daemon
This is at about the same level as Docker, fwiw.
Re: We want to make Nix better
#9I installed nix on my Mac but quickly backed out due to the complexity. I assumed the nix store would just be an ordinary directory with a tool for managing it, similar to brew. I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was too invasive for a tool I was unsure if I even wanted to use, so I uninstalled it. What is the reason for all this machinery? I went with the r…
It's because Nix wants to install into /nix. Once upon a time doing "sudo mkdir /nix" wasn't a problem, but recent macOS releases have made that very hard. Nix could switch to an alternate location on macOS (e.g. /opt/nix) but that has a lot of downsides for interoperability with other systems.
Yikes, I had no idea. What a tough pill to swallow all because the directory nix runs out of is hardcoded.
Re: We want to make Nix better
#10I installed nix on my Mac but quickly backed out due to the complexity. I assumed the nix store would just be an ordinary directory with a tool for managing it, similar to brew. I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was too invasive for a tool I was unsure if I even wanted to use, so I uninstalled it. What is the reason for all this machinery? I went with the r…
> What is the reason for all this machinery? Nix wants to use /nix, but Apple wants macOS to be locked down and secure. The compromise was putting /nix on a separate volume. > I discovered it creates a new Unix group, ... installs a daemon This is at about the same level as Docker, fwiw.
> The compromise was putting /nix on a separate directory.
Why does a separate directory need a whole other volume? These are just files, right? Why do they need to be on a separate volume?