118 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
118 lines
6.5 KiB
Markdown
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title = "Moving from Homebrew to Nix Package Manager"
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date = 2019-02-16T18:30:40-07:00
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draft = false
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keywords = ["nix", "nixos", "macos", "macbook", "package manager", "functional programming"]
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description = "Moving from Homebrew to Nix Package manager on my macbook pro"
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tags = ["nix", "nixos", "macos", "functional programming"]
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categories = ["nix", "nixos", "macos", "macbook"]
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lastmod = 2019-02-16T18:30:40-07:00
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As all my friends, colleagues and followers know I am very big on functional programming, so when I heard about nixOS and the nix package manager (A Purely Functional package manager) I really wanted to find out more about it.
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**Quote from** [Nix](https://nixos.org/nix/)
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> Nix is a powerful package manager for Linux and other Unix systems that makes package management reliable and reproducible. It provides atomic upgrades and rollbacks, side-by-side installation of multiple versions of a package, multi-user package management and easy setup of build environments.
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Finally this weekend I got the chance to dig in, find out more about it and try my hand at it by moving from using [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/) as my preferred choice for package management to Nix.
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Note that this not a detailed tutorial on Nix as I will leave that to the Nix documentation (see: [References and Recommended Resources](https://www.softinio.com/post/moving-from-homebrew-to-nix-package-manager/#references-and-recommended-resources)), this is more of an account of how to get started with Nix fast to be productive quickly whilst you learn all about Nix.
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## Getting started with Nix
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The documentation for Nix is pretty detailed and extensive. Though I plan to read all of it, I wanted a quick overview of what I am getting myself into. To achieve that in timely fashion I read this fantastic overview [Adelblog - My journey into Nix](https://adelbertc.github.io/posts/2017-04-03-nix-journey.html) by [Adelbert Chang](https://twitter.com/adelbertchang). This blog left me super excited to carry on.
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### Lets Install Nix
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Nix gives you two installation options: single user or multi-user. Even though I am the only user of my macbook I decided to go with the multiuser option so that Nix will be the defacto source of truth for everything on the whole laptop. Even if I never create another user for my laptop my software developer OCD is better satisfied by the way everything will be organized, setup and used on my laptop.
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To install open your terminal and run:
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```bash
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sh <(curl https://nixos.org/nix/install) --daemon
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```
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Follow the on screen instructions and you will have Nix Package manager installed on your macbook.
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### Installing Nix Darwin
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Nix Package manager is part of NixOS which is its own Linux based OS. With NixOS you can even configure your hardware and OS options using Nix . I was thinking to myself I wish I could do the same above just package management with MacOS. Luckily I found the Nix Darwin project [nix-darwin](https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin)which is trying to achieve that for macbooks and macOS. So after a successful installation of Nix Package manager I set off installing Nix Darwin:
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#### Backup a few files first
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```bash
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sudo mv /etc/zprofile /etc/zprofile.orig
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sudo mv /etc/nix/nix.conf /etc/nix/nix.conf.orig
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sudo mv /etc/zshrc /etc/zshrc.orig
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```
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#### Install Nix Darwin
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```bash
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nix-build https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin/archive/master.tar.gz -A installer
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./result/bin/darwin-installer
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```
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## Moving the packages I have with homebrew to Nix
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Once Nix and Nix-Darwin are installed you will have new configuration file here: `~/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix`
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I followed the following steps to move my packages across:
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- run `brew list` to get a list of what packages I have that was installed using homebrew
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**tip:** If you want to see what each package you have with homebrew depends on run this:
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```bash
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brew list -1 | while read cask; do echo -ne "\x1B[1;34m $cask \x1B[0m"; brew uses $cask --installed | awk '{printf(" %s ", $0)}'; echo ""; done
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```
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- Check if package you want to move across exists in Nix:
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```bash
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nix-env -qaP | grep -i <packagename>
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```
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alternatively you can visit: [Search NixOS packages](https://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html#)
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- Add your package to `~/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix` to the `environment.systemPackages` list (its space separated list).
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- Install the nix packages you added to your config file by running:
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```bash
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darwin-rebuild switch
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```
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- Remove the packages you successfully moved by running:
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```bash
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brew uninstall <packagename> --force
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```
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I started off by moving the packages one at a time , then in groups to completion. Last I run `brew cleanup`
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You can take a look at my configuration here: [Salar Rahmanian's darwin-configuration.nix](https://github.com/softinio/dotfiles/blob/master/nix/darwin-configuration.nix)
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## Useful Aliases in my zsh profile
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I added the following to my `.zshrc` profile to make it easier for me to use
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nix:
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```
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alias nixre="darwin-rebuild switch"
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alias nixgc="nix-collect-garbage -d"
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alias nixq="nix-env -qaP"
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alias nixupgrade="sudo -i sh -c 'nix-channel --update && nix-env -iA nixpkgs.nix && launchctl remove org.nixos.nix-daemon && launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nixos.nix-daemon.plist'"
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alias nixup="nix-env -u"
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alias nixcfg="nvim ~/.nixpkgs/darwin-configuration.nix"
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```
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## What am I doing next?
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This certainly has got me started with Nix and have me excited to use it more as much as possible so next I am looking at:
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- Moving my neovim/vim configuration to using Nix.
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- Learn and move my development workflow to using Nix shell. I currently develop using Scala, Haskell and Python I would love to hear from everyone on what tools you are using and what your workflow is
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- Create some nix packages for anything I notice missing
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Of course I will share all my learnings here on my blog so keep an eye on my blog or follow me on Twitter.
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## References and Recommended Resources
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- [Nix package manager manual](https://nixos.org/nix/manual/)
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- [nix-darwin: nix modules for darwin](https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin)
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- [Search NixOS packages](https://nixos.org/nixos/packages.html#)
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- [How up to date are NixOS channels?](https://howoldis.herokuapp.com/)
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- [Adelblog - My journey into Nix](https://adelbertc.github.io/posts/2017-04-03-nix-journey.html)
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- [Nix Pills](https://nixos.org/nixos/nix-pills/)
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- [Salar Rahmanian dotfiles](https://github.com/softinio/dotfiles)
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- [Homebrew](https://brew.sh/)
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