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Use Nix on a Mac they say, it’s easy. Just follow this 20 page long blog post and then spend every day fighting against how the OS wants to work.

I’ve tried Nix on a Mac half a dozen times. It always ends with frustration.

Homebrew works amazingly if you actually want to be on a Mac. If you HATE everything about MacOS and Apple and someone forced you to use a Mac, then use Docker and Nix inside of that.

Nix should never be used on a Mac. It is a philosophical disaster. Don’t do it. Delete the repos and the world will be better off.



I’ve been using Nix directly on MacOS with minimal issues for a few years now. Works great.

I hate using docker on Mac and have since replaced it with flakes and devenv.

My configuration with a step by step guide (600+ stars): https://github.com/dustinlyons/nixos-config


I used your repo as a foundation for my setup. it was a big help getting started. Many thanks!


> Nix should never be used on a Mac. It is a philosophical disaster. Don’t do it. Delete the repos and the world will be better off.

It's fine if you don't like Nix on Mac. It's fine to not use it and to voice your concerns. But calling it a net negative for the world is uncalled for and in my opinion extremely disrespectful to the maintainers doing an enormous amount of work for free.

On another note: I am extremely happy with my Nix on macOS setup.




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