When I've had to use a Mac, I've used nix to good success. I'm actually surprised how well it worked; I was able to basically just use the same config I use on Linux, removing just the few Linux-specific packages.
1. Not available at all in nixpkgs (e.g. Docker Desktop, BetterTouchTool, etc)
2. In nixpkgs, but completely broken or missing some architecture support (e.g. Firefox)
3. Actually available and somewhat functional in nixpkgs, but some significant features don't work because of code signing requirements and needing to be managed in the Applications folder (e.g. 1Password)
Quite a few tools do in fact work well with nix on Mac. Especially if it's FOSS and/or a cli-only based tool. And for FOSS tooling such as Firefox, there is often a convoluted workaround (I'm currently using `github:bandithedoge/nixpkgs-firefox-darwin`). And of course you can always package it yourself by doing things The Hard Way.
But the platform is still quite a ways away from being able to be used as a daily driver on Mac without Homebrew.
For alacrity, I remember it being annoying to integrate into Mac's launcher, but it otherwise worked.
Pretty much everything else was programming-related and just worked.
I don't use very many GUI apps so now that the installation piece is taken care of, I can just package everything I use if it really comes down to it. That'd be worth it for me just to get rid of the painfully slow `brew` invocations that lurk in my activation scripts.
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I hacked around a bit trying a few different approaches before giving up and switching back to the regular nix-Darwin homebrew approach. But the issue is probably solvable by someone who knows a lot more about how the code signing process works with Macs and the Applications folder
(Spotify didn't build because the Brew package doesn't have a hash, and Karabiner Elements didn't build bc idk why, but that's actually in Nixpkgs already and that version works fine.)
I did double-check that I have SIP enabled and everything. I'd be interested in trying to repro!
Aside: that mac-app-util works so nicely for the macOS apps that are already in Nixpkgs makes it feel much more worth it to me to package GUI apps for macOS, if that'll mean I can get rid of `brew` entirely. I wonder if this will spur others to also package more GUI apps this way.
VScode in particular was the one that broke for me, though that is actually available and mostly functional in nixpkgs so that one is not a showstopper.but might be a good test case to repro
Oh, here's that issue: https://github.com/maxgoedjen/secretive/issues/77
1Password definitely acts weird for me, to where I kind of wonder if the .app folder is malformed somehow. The version installed in the Nix store actually works fine-- but not if I double-click it or open it with the `open` command. In that case it kinda acts like something is going to launch but then it never comes up. But if I manually invoke `/Applications/Nix\ Apps/1Password.app/Contents/MacOS/1Password` from my terminal, it starts up fine! But when I directly launch that executable from Finder, the application does not start and I see that same message about not living in /Applications printed in the terminal. Idk why 1Password refuses to run from anywhere other than /Applications but that seems to be it's message rather than the operating system's.
It's a shame 1Password's Mac app can't run from the Nix store. They clearly have at least one Nixer at the company because they have cool integrations like this:
https://developer.1password.com/docs/cli/shell-plugins/nix/
I couldn't even get the Docker Desktop package to build from `brew-nix`. OrbStack in the Nix store died on signature errors, but when I visited Security & Privacy in System Preferences after that, there was a little notice that OrbStack had been blocked from running because it was from an unrecognized developer, with the option to allow it. After being allowed, it seemed to work as normal. Same for Podman Desktop.
Why do the signatures for those apps end up getting replaced with this setup anyway?
I was curious about your final question as well, but I know little about how this works. The error when I tried vscode looked to be that the signature had gotten malformed somehow during brew-nix’s copy operation but since I had no idea what a correct signature should even look like I got stumped there.