Top all-time · #7580
Mike Stip
Personal blog · wickedchicken.github.io/postprogrammingculture
Mike Stip writes Outer Haven, a personal blog at wickedchicken.github.io about programming and culture. Since 2019, 10 different Hacker News readers have linked it 11 times, most often “macOS Nix setup: an alternative to Homebrew (2020)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2024-11-05, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Mike Stip's macOS Nix setup guide is linked as an introduction to running Nix as a system package manager on Mac, as an alternative to Homebrew.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Mike Stip's personal blog
Most-linked posts?
- macOS Nix setup: an alternative to Homebrew (2020)8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2020-10-25
What Hacker News says?
I use nixpkgs and home-manager for a consistent package management and configuration across MacOS and Linux (NixOS), which others also reported great success [1]. As noted in the article [1], home-manager has a steeper learning curve, but is much more powerful (e.g., supports providing development dependencies and environment, or even extend to Ops). For the interested, search for some variants of “homebrew home-man…
Comment linking /post/macos-nix-setup/
on “Homebrew 3.0”Submitted macOS Nix setup: an alternative to Homebrew (2020) as a story · 528 points
HN discussionI would like to see it mentioned how to use Nix as a system package manager in MacOS. This guide was exactly what I needed: https://wickedchicken.github.io/post/macos-nix-setup/ and the official documentation made no mention of nix-darwin. It was frustrating reading all the official intro documentation on Nix and it only talking about nix-env (not declarative AFAIK) or how to use Nix for per-project dependencies.
Comment linking /post/macos-nix-setup/
on “How to Learn Nix”Submitted German for Programmers as a story · 372 points
HN discussionYou very clearly articulated a huge pain point with brew. I've been ruminating on making the switch to nix, you might already be familiar with it, but if not, here's an article I came across: https://wickedchicken.github.io/post/macos-nix-setup/ Reproducible builds are super appealing: "Nix builds packages in isolation from each other. This ensures that they are reproducible and don't have undeclared dependencies, s…
Comment linking /post/macos-nix-setup/
on “A surprisingly common error users make when installing Brew”Submitted Programmer in Berlin: Culture as a story · 114 points
HN discussionConsider using nix over homebrew / macports, it's pretty good on mac now. This is a reasonable intro doc https://wickedchicken.github.io/post/macos-nix-setup/
Comment linking /post/macos-nix-setup/
on “Some Differences Between macOS and Common Unix Systems”Submitted What I wish I had known as a programmer moving to Berlin as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted macOS Nix Setup (an alternative to Homebrew) (2020) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted macOS Nix Setup (An Alternative to Homebrew) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted macOS Nix Setup as a story · 2 points
HN discussion