macOS Nix First Taste

Note

Note that this blog currently acts as a reference for me. It is not a comprehensive guide on why and how to use Nix on macOS.

I chose nix because I am tired of Homebrew’s slowness and NOT PROVIDING BOTTLES (BINARY) FOR OLD MACOS VERSIONS.

Install

I am not using the official installer because it cannot survive macOS updates. Instead, I am using the Determinate System’s Nix Installer.

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ARCH=$(uname -m | sed 's/arm64/aarch64/')
OS=$(uname -s | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]')
curl -L -o nix-installer https://github.com/DeterminateSystems/nix-installer/releases/latest/download/nix-installer-$ARCH-$OS
chmod +x nix-installer
# Optionally, move nix-installer to your PATH
# sudo install nix-installer /usr/local/bin
./nix-installer install --explain

Pin Nixpkgs

I don’t want to download a tarball and extract it every now and then. I know you can set tarball-ttl to a higher value, but I don’t want to do that either. Just pin nixpkgs.

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nix registry pin nixpkgs

If you are like me in China, you may want to use a mirror.

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echo "substituters = https://mirrors.sjtug.sjtu.edu.cn/nix-channels/store/ https://cache.nixos.org/" | sudo tee -a /etc/nix/nix.conf

Using

I wrote some scripts just to make my life easier.

Later Steps

There is nix-darwin to make declarative configuration easier. I don’t have time to try it yet but I will definitely give it a try when I have time.