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I was forcefully relocated from my comfortable decade-old Debian home into OS X, and the package management here in unsatisfying. I'm looking forward to future

I was forcefully relocated from my comfortable decade-old Debian home into OS X, and the package management here in unsatisfying. I'm looking forward to future posts that show how Nix is better than Homebrew or MacPorts, because that hasn't been demonstrated so far. And as a bikeshed nitpick, I was always unhappy with the meaningless rpm options, preferring apt's clearer options (rpm -qa vs aptitude search). I'm a bit disappointed that nix chose to mimic rpm's style. Oh well, tomayto/tomahto.

mhd 10y ago
To continue picking nits, that's apples/apple pie, not tomatoes. rpm's equivalent is dpkg, not aptitude (whose match would be yum/dnf/zypper).
brobinson 10y ago
apt-cache search aptitude isn't necessarily installed.
- david-given 10y ago
  <even more tangential> The new apt, if you have it, now combines apt-get with apt-cache plus a bunch of UI improvements. apt search ... apt install ... If you've got it, it's well worth a look.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
benley 10y ago
There's a new commandline tool in the works that will improve all those interfaces; I'm not sure how far along it is, though. Here's the discussion: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/779 https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/779
doublerebel 10y ago
Try pkgsrc. It's much more like apt than nix, macports, or homebrew.
- aorth 10y ago
  pkgsrc is great and I prefer it to Homebrew on Mac OS X, but it only updates quarterly. :(
  - jperkin 10y ago
    Not true any longer, at least for the binary packages I produce[0]. I switched them over to trunk-based builds a while ago, which are updated every few days. [0] https://pkgsrc.joyent.com/install-on-osx/ https://pkgsrc.joyent.com/install-on-osx/
    - mseri 10y ago
      How is situation with python3 on osx? Last time I used pkgin, it was not compiled as Framework preventing some libraries to work properly
      - jperkin 10y ago
        They're all available: $ pkgin se python3 python35-3.5.1nb2 Interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language python34-3.4.4 Interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language python33-3.3.6nb3 Interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language along with a bunch of pre-packaged modules: $ pkgin avail | grep ^py3 | wc -l 1412 Let me know if anything you need is missing and I'll add it.
        mseri 10y ago
        Thanks. I had to look back at my notes. I had issues with matplotlib and few other packages at the time with python 3.4, due to python not being built as framework. I have just found a related issue: https://github.com/joyent/pkgsrc/issues/331 https://github.com/joyent/pkgsrc/issues/331 Unfortunately, from what I read there, I have still to use homebrew or install from python.org (with those I have no issue). I really enjoyed pkgin otherwise.
SwellJoe 10y ago
"I'm looking forward to future posts that show how Nix is better than Homebrew or MacPorts, because that hasn't been demonstrated so far." Homebrew is downright dangerous (I've written about why: http://inthebox.webmin.com/homebrew-package-installation-for-servers http://inthebox.webmin.com/homebrew-package-installation-for... ). MacPorts is fine. Not wonderful, but OK. Not reproducible in the way Nix is. PkgSrc is also pretty good. Also not reproducible the way Nix is. But, the packaging policies are good, the packages tend to be well-thought out, and the technical solution to stuff like dependency resolution is pretty OK. The people building and maintaining PkgSrc know what they're doing. Nix is clearly superior to all of them, however, in being reproducible, easy to roll-back in a predictable way (try going backward with almost any other package manager, even RPM/yum and dpkg/apt can't do that...I love'em both, but recognize that we now have better solutions to package management). Nix is just a fundamentally better tool. Flatpak is another really promising packaging technology with some of the same benefits (but it's tackling things in a different way; I think I still have to consider Nix a better overall solution; it is certainly simpler in both implementation and usage, for packagers/developers and end users). But, don't use Homebrew. For now, PkgSrc is probably the best method of getting a lot of reasonably good packages for Mac OS X. Nix will be the better option eventually, once there's a lot of people packaging for it (assuming people get over their bizarre love affair with Homebrew and start working with Nix, instead).
- eridius 10y ago
  Homebrew is not dangerous. Please don't spread FUD. Your link specifically covers the case of Homebrew on the server. But Homebrew isn't meant to be a server package manager. It's an OS X package manager, and OS X is a desktop operating system, not something that most people choose to use as a server (OS X Server exists but is primarily used for intranet stuff rather than as a production server). The complaints that your link has are only problems for an external-facing server. They're not problems for desktop use. And the simple answer to that is: don't use a desktop package manager on your server.
  - ghshephard 10y ago
    Totally agreed. Homebrew is not an appropriate tool for server package management (It assumes everything should be installed under a single user account)- but 98-99%+ of the people that use OS X and servers are not running OS X on their servers, macmini colo users excepted. The wording dangerous was poorly used, inappropriate for server package management would have been better.
speedkills 10y ago
I heard the hype. Figured I would give it a try. Installed emacs with nix Install spacemacs on top of new emacs. Throws odd errors. Uninstall emacs with nix Install emacs with brew Install spacemacs on top of emacs It works! To pull users from brew it needs to work at least as well, especially for common tools like emacs. Go check out the number of issues related just to emacs installs, it is kind of amazing.
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  Spacemacs is pretty complex with its own updating logic too. We really want to package it but I don't think anybody had gotten around to it then. Just about everything else I'd like to use is packaged, so Id like to think we're over the adoption-pkg-count chicken egg problem.

mhd 10y ago

To continue picking nits, that's apples/apple pie, not tomatoes. rpm's equivalent is dpkg, not aptitude (whose match would be yum/dnf/zypper).

brobinson 10y ago

apt-cache search aptitude isn't necessarily installed.

david-given 10y ago
<even more tangential> The new apt, if you have it, now combines apt-get with apt-cache plus a bunch of UI improvements. apt search ... apt install ... If you've got it, it's well worth a look.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

benley 10y ago

There's a new commandline tool in the works that will improve all those interfaces; I'm not sure how far along it is, though. Here's the discussion: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/779 https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/779

doublerebel 10y ago

Try pkgsrc. It's much more like apt than nix, macports, or homebrew.

aorth 10y ago
pkgsrc is great and I prefer it to Homebrew on Mac OS X, but it only updates quarterly. :(
- jperkin 10y ago
  Not true any longer, at least for the binary packages I produce[0]. I switched them over to trunk-based builds a while ago, which are updated every few days. [0] https://pkgsrc.joyent.com/install-on-osx/ https://pkgsrc.joyent.com/install-on-osx/
  - mseri 10y ago
    How is situation with python3 on osx? Last time I used pkgin, it was not compiled as Framework preventing some libraries to work properly
    - jperkin 10y ago
      They're all available: $ pkgin se python3 python35-3.5.1nb2 Interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language python34-3.4.4 Interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language python33-3.3.6nb3 Interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language along with a bunch of pre-packaged modules: $ pkgin avail | grep ^py3 | wc -l 1412 Let me know if anything you need is missing and I'll add it.
      - mseri 10y ago
        Thanks. I had to look back at my notes. I had issues with matplotlib and few other packages at the time with python 3.4, due to python not being built as framework. I have just found a related issue: https://github.com/joyent/pkgsrc/issues/331 https://github.com/joyent/pkgsrc/issues/331 Unfortunately, from what I read there, I have still to use homebrew or install from python.org (with those I have no issue). I really enjoyed pkgin otherwise.

SwellJoe 10y ago

"I'm looking forward to future posts that show how Nix is better than Homebrew or MacPorts, because that hasn't been demonstrated so far." Homebrew is downright dangerous (I've written about why: http://inthebox.webmin.com/homebrew-package-installation-for-servers http://inthebox.webmin.com/homebrew-package-installation-for... ). MacPorts is fine. Not wonderful, but OK. Not reproducible in the way Nix is. PkgSrc is also pretty good. Also not reproducible the way Nix is. But, the packaging policies are good, the packages tend to be well-thought out, and the technical solution to stuff like dependency resolution is pretty OK. The people building and maintaining PkgSrc know what they're doing. Nix is clearly superior to all of them, however, in being reproducible, easy to roll-back in a predictable way (try going backward with almost any other package manager, even RPM/yum and dpkg/apt can't do that...I love'em both, but recognize that we now have better solutions to package management). Nix is just a fundamentally better tool. Flatpak is another really promising packaging technology with some of the same benefits (but it's tackling things in a different way; I think I still have to consider Nix a better overall solution; it is certainly simpler in both implementation and usage, for packagers/developers and end users). But, don't use Homebrew. For now, PkgSrc is probably the best method of getting a lot of reasonably good packages for Mac OS X. Nix will be the better option eventually, once there's a lot of people packaging for it (assuming people get over their bizarre love affair with Homebrew and start working with Nix, instead).

eridius 10y ago
Homebrew is not dangerous. Please don't spread FUD. Your link specifically covers the case of Homebrew on the server. But Homebrew isn't meant to be a server package manager. It's an OS X package manager, and OS X is a desktop operating system, not something that most people choose to use as a server (OS X Server exists but is primarily used for intranet stuff rather than as a production server). The complaints that your link has are only problems for an external-facing server. They're not problems for desktop use. And the simple answer to that is: don't use a desktop package manager on your server.
- ghshephard 10y ago
  Totally agreed. Homebrew is not an appropriate tool for server package management (It assumes everything should be installed under a single user account)- but 98-99%+ of the people that use OS X and servers are not running OS X on their servers, macmini colo users excepted. The wording dangerous was poorly used, inappropriate for server package management would have been better.

speedkills 10y ago

I heard the hype. Figured I would give it a try. Installed emacs with nix Install spacemacs on top of new emacs. Throws odd errors. Uninstall emacs with nix Install emacs with brew Install spacemacs on top of emacs It works! To pull users from brew it needs to work at least as well, especially for common tools like emacs. Go check out the number of issues related just to emacs installs, it is kind of amazing.

Ericson2314 10y ago
Spacemacs is pretty complex with its own updating logic too. We really want to package it but I don't think anybody had gotten around to it then. Just about everything else I'd like to use is packaged, so Id like to think we're over the adoption-pkg-count chicken egg problem.