comma VS nix-darwin

Nowadays, I tend to try things out with comma, then add them to my configuration for later use. Some tools are not even installed in my systems because I use them so infrequently - opening a terminal and running , freecad is basically as easy as actually having it installed.

There's a version of this approach that uses nix-index to figure out which package a command is in called comma: https://github.com/nix-community/comma

Relatedly, check out comma. It's basically a shortcut prefix command that will search packages for the binary you want to run (via nix-index), and gives you an interactive choice if there are multiple. Which package was drill in again? No matter, I'll just prefix a comma :)

https://github.com/nix-community/comma

this + if you want to run a command automatically I suggest comma

Yeah dude. Emphemeral installs are a feature, not a bug. Similar vein is , https://github.com/nix-community/comma

You're looking for https://github.com/nix-community/comma

One of the nicest tools is comma. https://github.com/Shopify/comma. It's just a light weight wrapper around searching nix-pkgs and running something, but it sure makes a lot of things easier when you're sharing somebody else's laptop.

If you want to test out some program, I would STRONGLY recommend using nix-shell -p . This will create temporary environment, that will allow you to test out the package. You can also check out comma.

I love using Shopifys comma tool https://github.com/Shopify/comma cause it's so useful for just small programs that u need to run once and then forget about them

Just a shout out to nix-darwin[1]. It is nix, so initial setup is a bit involved. But then it truly makes it easy to configure everything in one place including mac defaults, homebrew apps declaratively and mas apps etc.

There is a sample config in nix-darwin repo[2].

[1] https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin

[2] https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/blob/master/modules/examp...

https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/tree/master/modules

nix-darwin does similar thing for MacOS

You can use https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin

There are many threads around where you can learn more about this (and why it's complicated...), but https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager/issues/1341 and https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/issues/139 seem like two of the most comprehensive.

Nix is pretty usable for both desktops and headless servers. Personally, I even use it on macOS without much trouble.

My system looks like any other install of Ventura, but all of my configuration, ranging from the terminal and VS Code to macOS-specific system preferences and Safari, is done declaratively in Nix [1]. The overwhelming majority of my installed software also comes from Nix packages, with some exceptions for stuff that is not packaged yet (e.g., I have Podman Desktop, the macOS ZFS port, Lulu, yubikey-manager-qt installed through Homebrew -- fortunately nix-darwin [2] also just lets me have an set of brews/casks in my config).

It was been a bit of a nightmare at first since the error messages are kind of horrific, and there can be a lack of good examples/docs on flakes. But I think the weekend worth of time I invested was worth it since I no longer need to rely on hacky shellscripts or remember to manually configure anything.

[1]: <https://github.com/nix-community/home-manager>

[2]: <https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin>

Take a look at nix-darwin, this is what I use. It allows you to configure your system similar to NixOS including globally installed programs.

This — I still use mas and brew —-cask through the nix-darwin module, though. It’s not exactly reproducible, but it’s at least closer to reproducible and declarative.