comma VS nixos-search

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

For me, https://search.nixos.org/ is a better aid than the wiki. Often the right keyword in the NixOS packages or modules search will lead me right to the obvious and simple answer that I couldn't find elsewhere.

Does https://search.nixos.org/ pull from nixpkgs, the Nix User Repository, or both?

Just go to search.nixos.org, open the option you would like to see more of, and click on the link behind "Declared in".

I've done a nix-env query, and checked in https://search.nixos.org but can't seem to find any SAR package, nor any google search that gave any hints to see if it might be part of another system utility package...

If you want to install a package, search for it at https://search.nixos.org

The gnome system monitor is gnome.gnome-system-monitor for example https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=23.05&show=gnome.g...

search.nixos.org also includes flakes that people PR into the index via GitHub at https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-search/issues

ps: $ nix search exists via experimental flags https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/command-ref/new-cli/nix3...

Idk about ec_sys, I couldn't find it on search.nixos.org, but since it's a kernel module it might just come with the kernel idk.

I rarely think to look at flakes by their source, actually. I have a Nixpkgs clone that I jump into for anything super ad-hoc but most of the time I'm just doing REPL, :lf ./. and mashing tab-completion. That's usually to make sure the thing I'm after exists in one of the large package sets like node, vimPlugins, or similar, and that I got the name right - which could probably be answered just as easily with https://search.nixos.org/ .

search.nixos.org