nixos-config VS nix-darwin

Here’s Mitchell Hashimoto (founder of HashiCorp) setup config.

https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config

In my case, I started by installing the NixOS using the Gnome Installer on VmWare fusion, and then modified it using the example config from mitchellh as a guide. Actually entering the configuration yourself definitely helps with learning.

I have a NixOS dev environment in a VM which I built based on https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config. Similar to that setup, I use Flakes for my main configuration, and use home-manager to install + configure dev tools that I want available across multiple projects

Yes, maybe not as easily. Check my setup https://github.com/kohlerm/nixos-config which I forked from https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config a while ago

Hi, if u can not get a linux pc - then have a look on the following thing (nixos). https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config

I'm developing mostly using console applications like vim so I don't need GUI apps for what I'm doing and this made me wonder if it's not better to simply spin a Linux VM inside my macOS to do my development. Something like this: https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config (this guy is one of the founders of Hashicorp)

One of the most popular NixOS configs on GitHub does this https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config

The README describes the experience, though the author takes the approach of using the VM mainly for terminal-based stuff.

This post focused solely on the Nix package manager and Nix packages - for anyone that uses MacOS but is interesting in trying NixOS (or using it within a VM in MacOS), I definitely recommend Mitchell Hashimoto's NixOS repo: https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config

Honestly, doing that may be easier and a better option than using Nix packages in MacOS.

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.