comma VS nix-search-cli

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

- you may want to search from the command line

`nix search` is a cruel joke which doesn't allow searching by the name/program that would be installed, only package name, and requires a flake name every time. Absolutely terrible interface.

My tool is a single-install binary that performs fast and accurate search to help you find the right package name to install a given binary. I don't understand how after years of using other package managers anyone could want a search tool that does anything other than this by default.

For more details on why this exists, check out https://github.com/peterldowns/nix-search-cli#motivation

The nix package search website is OK, but it doesn't let you filter by the names of installed binaries. A lot of the time, you have a question like "what nixpkgs attribute do i install in order to get the `python3` command". I recently wrote a command line tool that allows you to do this. It uses the same elasticsearch index as the search website, but allows more powerful filtering. If anyone is thinking of getting into nix, please consider trying it out!

https://github.com/peterldowns/nix-search-cli