mk-darwin-system

vic's small utility to create a full ( nixFlakes + nix-darwin + home-manager ) nixOS system.

Getting Started

Install nixFlakes on your system.

In order to bootstrap your system, nixFlakes needs to be installed and the flake experimental commands need to be enabled.

Be sure to enable flakes experimental commands by editing your nix.conf file or by using the nix --experimental-features "nix-command flakes" command. Following examples assume you already enabled these experimental features.

Tip: If you create a file $PWD/nix.conf with the following content:

system = aarch64-darwin
extra-platforms = aarch64-darwin x86_64-darwin 
experimental-features = nix-command flakes
build-users-group = nixbld

then you might export NIX_CONF_DIR="$PWD" and avoid typing long nix commands.

Create your darwinSystem flake:

mkdir my-system; cd my-system;
nix flake init -t github:vic/mk-darwin-system

Customize, Build and Activate your system

# 1) first step is checking your system configuration is ok.
nix run . -- check

# 2) Edit your generated flake.nix and customize your environment.
# after editing your configuration, you might want to run step 1 again.

# 3) If everything went ok, you can switch to your new system using
nix run # same as: nix run . -- switch

Alternatively, or for debugging, you might want to build and activate manually with:

nix build # outputs your system into ./result/
./result/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild activate --flake .
# you might also be interested in ./result/activate and ./result/activate-user

Cheat sheet.

• nix run the default app builds and activates your system.

• nix develop enters an interactive shell with your system-environment packages enabled.

• nix run . -- --help executes darwin-rebuild in the context of your flake.

• nix run '.#pkgs.aarch64-darwin.hello' allows you to run apps directly.

See Also

minimal

nix flake init -t 'github:vic/mk-darwin-system#minimal'

The reference template you can edit to build your system upon.

dev-envs

nix flake init -t 'github:vic/mk-darwin-system#dev-envs'

And example that shows how to setup direnv for fast cached environments built along with your system. No need to use lorri daemons. Loading the environment is as fast as sourcing a dump of environment variables.

niv-managed-apps

nix flake init -t 'github:vic/mk-darwin-system#niv-managed-apps'

An example showing how to install .dmg Apps while managing them with niv. Links an home-manager installed Applications/ on user home.

intel-overlay

nix flake init -t 'github:vic/mk-darwin-system#intel-overlay'

An example of how to use x86-64-darwin packages even when your full system is arm64-darwin.

vix - Vic's Nix Environment

vic's environment built using mkDarwinSystem.