nixos-config VS nix-installers

I’ve been using Nix directly on MacOS with minimal issues for a few years now. Works great.

I hate using docker on Mac and have since replaced it with flakes and devenv.

My configuration with a step by step guide (600+ stars): https://github.com/dustinlyons/nixos-config

I tried to make Nix as easy to adopt as possible by creating Nix commands and a step by step guide: https://github.com/dustinlyons/nixos-config

I love Nix. I use it every day to manage multiple local dev environments. And I use devenv instead of docker for sharing project-specific environments with others.

Felt (still am, actually) this problem too. Started with the same approach (Vanilla Emacs) a few years back in order to really learn the ins-and-outs after giving DOOM and others a shot and feeling like I didn't have the faintest what was really going on with all the magic. I somehow did end up falling in love with Emacs again[^1].

Won't lie... there was a fair amount of cursing involved and, despite the love, I wouldn't recommend many to venture down this road[^2].

Now I have gone the literate config way in my dotfiles https://github.com/vidbina/dotfiles/tree/main/emacs and I jump between Cursor (vscode-based), Neovim and Emacs for different tasks on a daily. I also found dustinlyons/nixos-config (https://github.com/dustinlyons/nixos-config/blob/main/module...) just a few days ago and figured that could be a fun resource when you're building yours up.

Take it as a hobby. There are a bunch of nice things that I picked up from Emacs (a. literate configs, b. comfort around working with LISPs, c. bigger appreciation for parts of the GNU ecosystem, d. more in-depth understanding of how my editor works which helps me debug issues in Neovim or vscode when I see them) but I still think that I'm cursed by wanting to go down this road so badly. Wish I could just vscode my way through live and build dope stuff, unencumbered.

1: Used Emacs heavily in college over 12 years ago when I would boot the Windows + Novell groupware school computers into my own Ubuntu config with my Emacs and embedded dev toolchain from my pendrive.

2: The single-threaded-ness and related ocassional unresponsiveness/hangups still grind my gears.

Here is my flake using home manager on Mac: https://github.com/dustinlyons/nixos-config

What do I need to do to switch from an official Nix install to using nix-installer on macOS? Just uninstall the current nix and install using nix-installer?

My config is loosely based off https://github.com/dustinlyons/nixos-config if this matters. Using nix-darwin.

My configuration uses Nix.

Not my personal notes, but how I do my writing and organize my thoughts. This is my Nix configuration that powers my Macbook, Linux PC, and home lab server. Emacs + org-roam to capture everything. https://github.com/dustinlyons/nixos-config

If you install it from the community RPM installer, it works as they have SELinux support added: https://github.com/nix-community/nix-installers

I tried to install the Nix package manager on my Fedora 37 machine. Having read about some issues with installing Nix with the install script on Fedora and other OS, using Selinux, I chose install via "nix-installers" rpm-packe (https://github.com/nix-community/nix-installers/issues/16). Unfortunately, I get warnings about created uids throughout the install process not being in the scope of `SYS_UID_MAX 999`. Furthermore, after rebooting the computer, I end up with a flickering black screen instead of on my (Gnome) Desktop environment.

Looks like you already found u/adisbladis legacy installers and opened a feature request for Silverblue support. Your best bet would be to start learning how SELinux policies work and see if you can adapt those for the way that you've set up Silverblue, or to see if you can modify the RPM builder to accommodate Silverblue by putting the Nix store under /var and bind mounting it onto /nix, like those other instructions floating around do.

There's work to add nix to silverblue via community packaging: https://github.com/nix-community/nix-installers/pull/8

I think nonguix also uses equivalent machinery for its Steam package: https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix/-/blob/master/nongnu/pack...

Maybe there are docs on repurposing that someone more familiar with nonguix can point to.

Apparently there is an rpm-ostree-friendly RPM build of Nix that can be used to install Nix on Silverblue as well: https://github.com/nix-community/nix-installers/pull/8

It includes some code to get around the group/user management quirks that some other commenters have noted b0rked the Guix installer, so perhaps it gives an outline of how to install Guix on Silverblue for a hacker who'd like to try it :)