🔗 How I use Nix on macOS

I’ve been using GNU/Linux[^1] as my main operating system since as early as 2005. I like a lot of things about it, but one thing I didn’t like was the lack of polish. After years of tinkering and crashing, I was looking for something more stable. This is why I was excited to switch to Mac when I changed jobs and the company [^2] could afford a Macbook.

However, I was missing some things from my previous Linux system, chief among them being package management. Those familiar with Linux will recognize that most distributions come with a central repository of pre-configured packages. macOS has the App Store, but it’s limited to graphical user interfaces. Coming from Linux I’m accustomed to command-line tools and find them indispensable for my work.

I quickly found that there’s an unofficial package manager and its accompanying package repository for macOS, collectively called Homebrew. I used that for a while and it worked okay. My coworkers, on the other hand, were using NixOS, and seeing their workflow changed what I expect from a package manager fundamentally. Luckily for me, Nix is cross-platform and it works well on macOS. Naturally, I gave it a try.

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