RARalith·Nov 2, 2018
> most of the configuration is for desktop stuff and NixOS doesn't really cover that.
I like home-manager: https://github.com/rycee/home-manager
In NixOS – Purely Functional Linux Distributionnix-community
home-manager
Nix2017–2026
nix-community / home-manager
home-manager
Manage a user environment using Nix [maintainer=@khaneliman, @rycee]
53Distinct people
65Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
10.5KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Manage a user environment using Nix [maintainer=@khaneliman, @rycee]
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- nix-darwin/nix-darwin · linked in 5 of the same discussions
- nix-community/emacs-overlay · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- nixos/nixpkgs · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 8:03:49 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year65 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2017-09-08 08:31:43 UTC to 2026-04-23 14:40:50 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 11 | 0 | 11 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 16 | 1 | 15 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
What Hacker News says
5 sourcesA similar abstraction is being created into home-manager to generate MUA/MTA/MRA configurations from a central place. For now astroid/alot/offlineimap/mbsync/msmtp are supported. Neomutt support incoming https://github.com/rycee/home-manager/pull/300
In Luke's mutt wizard for automatic Neomutt and OfflineIMAP configurationI use Nix[1] as my package manager on macOS with home-manager[2]. Since Nix puts nix paths before OS paths and doesn't prefix GNU commands with 'g', I just install coreutils and others:
https://github.com/danieldk/nix-home/blob/a7ddc5acf260552f73...
The nice thing is that the system state is never mutated, you can just remove these lines from the configuration, run home-manager switch and you are back to the standard macOS userland.
You could also only use GNU userland in specific projects by putting a default.nix file in the project's directory and using dirvenv. cd to myproject and you have a GNU userland, cd out of myproject and you are back to the macOS userland.
[1] https://nixos.org/nix/
[2] https://github.com/rycee/home-manager
In Show HN: Linuxify – Transform the MacOS CLI into a GNU/Linux CLI ExperienceHave you tried using something like `home-manager` (https://github.com/rycee/home-manager)? It gives you declarative package and configuration management with Nix on non-NixOS. It might be a nice compromise until NixOS/Nixpkgs is mature enough to meet your needs more completely. Or maybe you'll never switch, if you really like the convenience of being able to easily grab a trendy package from AUR or whatever. But either way, there's a lot of declarative Nix-y goodness you can get on Arch Linux! :-D
There's a similar tool for macOS called `nix-darwin`, as well: https://github.com/LnL7/nix-darwin
In NixOS 18.03 ReleasedI've developed packages for ABS before, and it's nice. What nix's model gets you is (a) largely avoiding complex bash scripts, and (b) a pile of tools for working with packages that you don't want to install semi-irreversibly. nix-shell, for example, will put you in a shell inside the build environment, and you can run the build steps yourself and see what the outcomes are. nix-build will build a piece of software and create a symlink to the output, but not install it into your user's package namespace.
One of the nice things is that you can install many things without having to sudo - the build is run by a daemon and sandboxed. nix-shell can also be used to create a shell in which a given package set is installed - you can use that to use a piece of software as a one-off or create a development environment that doesn't pollute your gener
Read the rest
al system. Tools like home-manager[0] can help with managing your home directory in a similar way to NixOS's management of your system, too - I have redis and postgres installed using home-manager to run as my own user on demand under systemctl.
[0] https://github.com/rycee/home-manager