Package management on macOS with Nix-Darwin • Hacker News Board

Re: Package management on macOS with Nix-Darwin

#31

Post by JamesSwift » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 8:38 PM UTC

pxc wrote: post #29

JamesSwift wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any advice on getting the determinate installer and nix-darwin (via flakes) to be more seamless together? I have a decent setup, but the install/remove is clunkier than it needs to be because 1) on install, nix-darwin complains about the nix.conf that determinate sets up 2) on uninstall, determinate complains about nix-darwin being installed

1. I don't think this could be called seamless. But I just don't use the normal Nix-Darwin installer. I: a. build darwin-rebuild from the Nix-Darwin flake b. do a darwin-rebuild build --flake of the target system c. delete all of the files Nix-Darwin will complain about colliding with upon first install, including `/etc/nix/nix.conf` d. run the activation scripts in the built system directly, like ./result/activate-u…

Yeah, I actually have a slightly more streamlined version of step 1 by running the flake directly, I am just annoyed that I have to manually get involved (and I also have to manually reconcile options that determinate sets in the nix.conf, by translating them into my nix-darwin config).

Re: Package management on macOS with Nix-Darwin

#32

Post by pxc » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

JamesSwift wrote: post #31

pxc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I don't think this could be called seamless. But I just don't use the normal Nix-Darwin installer. I: a. build darwin-rebuild from the Nix-Darwin flake b. do a darwin-rebuild build --flake of the target system c. delete all of the files Nix-Darwin will complain about colliding with upon first install, including `/etc/nix/nix.conf` d. run the activation scripts in the built system directly, like ./result/activate-u…

Yeah, I actually have a slightly more streamlined version of step 1 by running the flake directly, I am just annoyed that I have to manually get involved (and I also have to manually reconcile options that determinate sets in the nix.conf, by translating them into my nix-darwin config).

> and I also have to manually reconcile options that determinate sets in the nix.conf, by translating them into my nix-darwin config

This is what I used to do to appease the installer before. After some options changed and I was like 'you know what, I'm happy with the ones I set; if I have already built the system before I run the activation script, then it's fine to delete /etc/nix/nix.conf.'.

The Nix-Darwin installer isn't a great option for me anyway because it assumes your darwin-config will live in ~/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix, but I like to keep it in /etc/nix-darwin/configuration.nix for a more NixOS-like convention.

Re: Package management on macOS with Nix-Darwin

#33

Post by jordanreger » Fri, Apr 26, 2024, 7:46 PM UTC

pxc wrote: post #18

jordanreger wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried using the Determinate Systems installer? This (supposedly) helps to not break everything on system updates. As far as I can tell, it works.

It adds a launchd service that makes sure stuff sourcing your Nix environment setup script is present in all your shell units on boot, so they get reestablished when macOS updates nuke them. macOS apps do weird shit to work around macOS quirks. But it's a really good installer. Can't recommend it enough.

Interesting. Good to know!