The install process was simpler before recent OSX updates. > I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was

The install process was simpler before recent OSX updates. > I discovered it creates a new Unix group, adds a separate APFS volume, installs a daemon. This was too invasive for a tool I was unsure if I even wanted to use, so I uninstalled it. Since you'd already installed it, wouldn't trying it in some capacity before uninstalling it have made sense? > What is the reason for all this machinery Enforcing reproducibility basically. I don't know all but... The daemon and APFS volume otherwise readonly /nix that only the daemon can write to can't be created. The group is probably for the daemon to be able to write to /nix. The path /nix is important because the remote binary cache paths will miss otherwise and you'll compile everything from source. > I went with the recommended multi-user install, should I have just used the single user mode instead? I'm guessing it would work in the way you want, but I always opt for the daemon.