4 ms·

I'm not as far along this curve with macOS as Graham is with NixOS (and I'm a little jealous), but I'm approaching something like what you ask for. Feel free to

I'm not as far along this curve with macOS as Graham is with NixOS (and I'm a little jealous), but I'm approaching something like what you ask for. Feel free to ask questions; I'll try to remember to check back. I have an air from 2013; I moved (regrettably, given the keyboard) to a new air around this time last year and used the process as an excuse to force myself to specify everything well enough that I could recover everything I need from stock macOS from a short bootstrap script. I use yadm (~git) for my dotfiles, Nix for everything Nix can do readily, brew bundle for a few mac apps around the edges, and 3 small restic backups for some project files and such. My dotfiles contain a longer bootstrap script that takes over the heavy lifting once yadm is installed. This script configures most of the settings I need on the way, and prompts me to do the few bits I haven't found a good way to automate. It also collapses ~/Downloads, ~/Desktop, and ~/Documents into a single directory, so that I don't have out-of-sight/mind places for state to hide. It has been a lot of work, but it has bought me peace-of-mind that I can replace my system quickly (i.e., be ready to work on a new device in ~2h with maybe 20 minutes of actual babysitting?) That said, I think the basics here are actually fairly low-hanging fruit. You can also make some really quick progress once you know you've got everything essential safeguarded if you're willing to take a dive like Graham has here and let minor losses roll off your back. Access to a second mac also helps a lot; iterating on problems in the actual bootstrap process is slow, and best done while you have a working system you can stay productive on. I'm currently most of the way through building out the rough inverse of my bootstrap script--a script that audits as much of my "state" as it can; I hope to have it working for a living as part of my backup runs soon. It cleans up and auto-commits anything it can, tells me what is in a clean state, reassures me not to worry about everything I've worried about during past moves, and gives me an explicit checklist for anything that isn't buttoned up. I think the main things left are forcing me to deal with downloads/desktop/documents as I go (with measures like Graham's being on the table...), and figuring out if there's a sane way to audit for drift in my macOS system/app settings.

jedberg 7y ago
Thanks for the details. When you set up a new system, how do you solve for these: All my Firefox plugins and their config (I guess this is technically data) All the settings I've changed though the control panel (I can't figure out every file that changes when I make a change). Any time I've changed a setting with nvram or defaults Most of the settings of the default apple apps. My wireless configs This is always the part I get stuck on.
- abathur 7y ago
  I'll number based on your post's paragraphs with a zero index :) 1. Safari is my daily driver, so I'd have to trawl other people's dotfiles/bootstrap scripts for evidence anyone's handling FF in a smart way. But, this might still help: Apple recently changed Safari extensions to be an adjunct to native apps. Before they made this change, I had a section of my bootstrap that used the `open` command to launch the Safari extension page for each extension I used, which made it pretty trivial to click install on each tab. Another thing you might find tractable is looking for FF config/state files that you can back up and restore (narrowly). This is easier to play with if you have a 2nd system as I mentioned. I figured out, for example, how to restore my macOS Terminal.app windows from my previous install with all of my scrollback history. 2. These are rough, but you're already on the right track. It sucks, so maybe bitch at Apple about it--more voices might move the needle here. I have 3 basic approaches: find a defaults (and, rarely, another command) that does the same thing; figure out which plist file is implicated and diff it before/after changes until I figure out how to force the right change (broadly, I find it better to try preference edits with all involved apps closed); AppleScript it. I have applescripts in my bootstrap for stuff like setting my Finder preferences and enabling specific Safari extensions (now that they're bundled with .apps). If you haven't already tried it, UIElementInspector makes it much more plausible to actually write an AppleScript that has to do UI manipulation. 3. No direct comment on nvram as I've never fiddled with it, though I noticed it does have an option for outputting the current settings and a flag for setting them from a file. For defaults, I'm not sure there's anything better than just not doing it unless you add it to your script. (This is where I was wondering about whether there's a good way to diff my delta against my setup script...) 4. Too vague for me to give a good answer. If you can't find a way to set these from the CLI or hacking around with plists, I'm not sure anything shy of AppleScript will help. 5. What do you mean by wireless configs? Passwords and network names? I pull mine in through iCloud keychain and don't otherwise sweat these.

jedberg 7y ago

Thanks for the details. When you set up a new system, how do you solve for these: All my Firefox plugins and their config (I guess this is technically data) All the settings I've changed though the control panel (I can't figure out every file that changes when I make a change). Any time I've changed a setting with nvram or defaults Most of the settings of the default apple apps. My wireless configs This is always the part I get stuck on.

abathur 7y ago
I'll number based on your post's paragraphs with a zero index :) 1. Safari is my daily driver, so I'd have to trawl other people's dotfiles/bootstrap scripts for evidence anyone's handling FF in a smart way. But, this might still help: Apple recently changed Safari extensions to be an adjunct to native apps. Before they made this change, I had a section of my bootstrap that used the `open` command to launch the Safari extension page for each extension I used, which made it pretty trivial to click install on each tab. Another thing you might find tractable is looking for FF config/state files that you can back up and restore (narrowly). This is easier to play with if you have a 2nd system as I mentioned. I figured out, for example, how to restore my macOS Terminal.app windows from my previous install with all of my scrollback history. 2. These are rough, but you're already on the right track. It sucks, so maybe bitch at Apple about it--more voices might move the needle here. I have 3 basic approaches: find a defaults (and, rarely, another command) that does the same thing; figure out which plist file is implicated and diff it before/after changes until I figure out how to force the right change (broadly, I find it better to try preference edits with all involved apps closed); AppleScript it. I have applescripts in my bootstrap for stuff like setting my Finder preferences and enabling specific Safari extensions (now that they're bundled with .apps). If you haven't already tried it, UIElementInspector makes it much more plausible to actually write an AppleScript that has to do UI manipulation. 3. No direct comment on nvram as I've never fiddled with it, though I noticed it does have an option for outputting the current settings and a flag for setting them from a file. For defaults, I'm not sure there's anything better than just not doing it unless you add it to your script. (This is where I was wondering about whether there's a good way to diff my delta against my setup script...) 4. Too vague for me to give a good answer. If you can't find a way to set these from the CLI or hacking around with plists, I'm not sure anything shy of AppleScript will help. 5. What do you mean by wireless configs? Passwords and network names? I pull mine in through iCloud keychain and don't otherwise sweat these.