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Dotfiles with Nix, Home Manager, and nix-darwin

Nix logo

I'm currently in the process of rewriting a lot of this in Nix installer and documentation), so a lot of this is in flux.

To both install Nix and get Home Manager to set up your home directory, you can run the bootstrap script:

git clone <this-repo> ~/.dotfiles
./.dotfiles/bin/bootstrap.sh

You can then use the alias hms to run home-manager switch to update things periodically.

MacOS setup

On MacOS, this will also install Homebrew. I use nix-darwin to separately configure my MacOS machines, but this install is not yet currently automated.

First add a darwinConfigurations block for your machine near the bottom of flake.nix:

      darwinConfigurations.<machine> = mkDarwinConfig {
        system = "x86_64-darwin";
        machine = "<machine>";
      };

Then you can set up nix-darwin by following the steps below:

# run the initial build of the nix-darwin derivation
nix build $HOME/.dotfiles#darwinConfigurations.<machine>.system

# nix-darwin needs a symlink for /run, so ask MacOS to do it for us
printf 'run\tprivate/var/run\n' | sudo tee -a /etc/synthetic.conf
# call apfs.util -t to create it without having to reboot
sudo /System/Library/Filesystems/apfs.fs/Contents/Resources/apfs.util -t

# now call darwin-rebuild on the derivation created by "nix build"
./result/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild switch --flake ./.dotfiles

# this will result in some errors that you can work around with similar edits to files.
# you may need to fix symlinks or call the following commands to source files under /etc/static. This all depends on
# the errors you see from the first call to darwin-rebuild
echo 'if test -e /etc/static/bashrc; then . /etc/static/bashrc; fi' | sudo tee -a /etc/bashrc
echo 'if test -e /etc/static/zshrc; then . /etc/static/zshrc; fi' | sudo tee -a /etc/zshrc
echo 'if test -e /etc/static/zshenv; then . /etc/static/zshenv; fi' | sudo tee -a /etc/zshenv
sudo ln -sfn /etc/static/nix/nix.conf /etc/nix/nix.conf

# call darwin-rebuild one more time to verify things are fixed:
./result/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild switch --flake ./.dotfiles

after that the dr alias should be available to run darwin-rebuild switch.

NOTE: if at any point you see errors like "Operation not permitted", it's likely you need to give nix Full Disk Access permissions (System Preferences/Settings -> Security & Privacy -> Privacy tab -> Full Disk Access).

What you get

In flux, but you should get:

  • The same list of command line utilities available on Linux and MacOS hosts.
  • Neovim as the default editor with a whole bunch of plugins installed.
  • fzf for fuzzy-finding in lists (e.g., zsh command history, directories, git branches)
  • Mac: iTerm2 also installed via Home Manager on MacOS and synchronized to its config.
  • Mac: Virtual Studio Code installed via Home Manager on MacOS.
  • Mac: Home Manager should create aliases in MacOS for its GUI apps in ~/Applications/Nix.
  • Mac: nix-darwin should configure global settings according to my liking.
  • Mac: Alfred with a (hopefully) synchronized preferences directory.

Acknowledgements

  • Julia Evans' article "Some notes on using nix" was what originally got me excited about trying out Nix, since her guides are very thorough and explain everything plainly.
  • Zero to Nix, a site run by Determinate Systems with a good introduction to Nix concepts.
  • xyno's blog article explaining how he learned about Nix via installing and developing flakes in MacOS. It helped me when troubleshooting my installs on MacOS as well.