nix-installer VS dotfiles

This is a way improved[1] version of the official installer, capable of uninstallation among many other things, there is no need to use the official one: https://determinate.systems/posts/determinate-nix-installer

1: https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer?tab=read...

The Determinate Systems nix installer is quite smooth: https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer/

Though it does tend to get clobbered on macOS updates.

and that's just the simple version, on Linux, and thus is likely the happy-path in CI.

When trying to use it locally on macOS, this here is just some "you wanna do _what_?!": https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer/tree/v0.... (not to pick on determinate.systems, the upstream is similarly facepalm: https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/installation/installing-... )

I installed nix with the following nix-installer: bash curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf -L https://install.determinate.systems/nix | sh -s -- install Now I'm trying to install home-manager and I'm starting from 3.2 Standalone setup with the following command: bash nix run home-manager/master -- init --switch but it gives me the following error message: Could not find suitable profile directory, tried /home/tornax/.local/state/home-manager/profiles and /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/tornax

Alternatively the Determinate Systems Nix installer runs on Steamdeck. They even have instructions for setting up a Steamdeck VM where you can try out anything before buying (other than running games).

Nice write up. But my question would be why not just use the Determinate Systems Nix installer to install nix? Is there a specific reason you went with Guix?

Personally, I like using this alternate installer. I find it a bit easier to work with. https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer

You should be able to install both in a container and on the host. And for the install script, no idea why it doesn't work for you, but there's also an unofficial installer you could try: https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer

I've installed Nix on macOS using nix-installer. Now I can start a temporary nix shell using nix-shell -p git direnv as an example, but I need both of these packages "globally" outside of a nix-shell. How do I do this on macos?

Now that this binary installer exists I would definitely recommend it.

I’ve deleted Homebrew from my system and I’m now using the same home-manager setup for my macOS laptops as well as my WSL installation on windows.

It’s so great to have the exact same tools and shell configuration installed everywhere.

I have not used flakes yet but if that will help me deal with the differences between my systems I’m definitely for it!

E.g I have a work Mac, personal Mac, personal PC with WSL.

When on my work machine, usernames are different and my Git config should identify me as me, and I shouldn’t have access to my personal credential for personal GitHub, RSA private keys for personal servers, etc.

But all else should be the same.

Mostly there but the credentials part I am still figuring out.

If you want to check it out, it’s here: https://github.com/leonbreedt/dotfiles

Won’t work for you out of the box tho as it depends on private repo for sensitive configs.