Installation

MACOS

First run xcode-select --install

• Install nix

  https://lix.systems/install/ https://zero-to-nix.com/

• Or install brew and run the macos-setup.sh script and skip all nix steps
• If brew not found on command line add it to your path:
  • echo "export PATH=/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.zshrc

** Install nix-darwin** this approach pre-builds nix as your user then only uses sudo to activate as root. This uses the build from the user so root doesn't have to rebuild maximizing cache use.

cd ~/Downloads
curl -LJO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/marvindore/dotfiles/refs/heads/main/.config/nix-darwin/flake.nix
nix build ~/Downloads#darwinConfigurations.mchip.system
sudo ./result/sw/bin/darwin-rebuild switch --flake ~/Downloads#mchip

use of sudo is needed for initial setup because nix-darwin needs to configure system-wide settings like /etc defaults, /Applications, and launchd services. This creates your "active system" under /nix/store/.. and sets up the darwin-rebuild links.

# rebuild config
darwin-rebuild switch --flake ~/dotfiles/.confid/nix-darwin#mchip

the rebuild usually doesn't need sudo each time unless you update system aliases/defaults.

Finding packages with nix

• website: search.nixos.org
• cli: nix search <repository_from_config> i.e. nix search nixpkgs tmux

Updating packages in nix

Update packages requires two commands

nix flake update #which updates the flake.lock file
#rebuild your config
darwin-rebuild switch --flake ~/dotfiles/.config/nix-darwin#mchip 

** Setup ssh**

• https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/connecting-to-github-with-ssh/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent?platform=mac

Use GNU stow to setup symlinks

cd dotfiles
stow .

# the following command will look for existing dotfiles at that location and use those to overwrite the files in this directory
stow --adopt .

Now that symlinks are created, use the flake from the dotfiles

Set zsh as default shell

First view list of shells, if bash not listed and you add zsh you might find you can no longer log in as root and bash doesn't work

cat /etc/shells
# add zsh
command -v zsh | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
# now we have told terminal zsh is valid shell login, set as default
sudo chsh -s $(which zsh) $USER

Setup Vale on MacOS

cp ~/dotfiles/.config/vale/.vale.ini "~/Library/Application Support/vale/"
~/.local/share/nvim/mason/packages/vale/vale --config="$HOME/Library/Application Support/vale/.vale.ini" sync

Linux

vale --config="$HOME/.config/vale/.vale.ini" sync

Tmux

Install tpm git clone https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tpm ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm then reload envionment Ctrl-I

Dotnet

dotnet tool install -g dotnet-outdated-tool
dotnet tool install --global dotnet-ef

mkdir -p ~/.config/zellij/plugins/ curl -LO https://github.com/fresh2dev/zellij-autolock/releases/download/0.2.2/zellij-autolock.wasm