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MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

(sigpipe.macromates.com)
2031 points jrk | 1 comments | 22 May 20 15:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.268s | source
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soraminazuki ◴[22 May 20 17:36 UTC] No.23274749[source]▶
Up until the release of Catalina, I've always upgraded to the latest version of macOS within a month or two. But some of the changes this time is really stopping me from upgrading.

As of Catalina, there's no sane way to install the Nix package manager without losing functionality because macOS now disallows creating new files in the root directory[1]. Nix stores its packages in the /nix directory and it's not possible to migrate without causing major disruptions for existing NixOS and other Linux users. This is too bad, since apart from Nix being a nice package manager, it also provides a sane binary package for Emacs. The Homebrew core/cask versions only provides a limited feature set[2][3].

[1]: https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/2925

[2]: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/issues/31510

[3]: https://github.com/caldwell/build-emacs/search?q=support+is%...

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1. lilyball ◴[22 May 20 20:17 UTC] No.23276458[source]▶
You can install Nix without losing functionality, it’s just annoying because it requires setting up a separate volume, and if you want it encrypted and available before the GUI session restores then you have to use a login script to force-mount it. Personally I just keep my Nix volume unencrypted because I don’t build any proprietary software in it and I don’t care if someone can see what I have installed.

I really wish Apple would give third parties the ability to create firmlinks (or at least give Nix one), or barring that, give us a sane way to mount encrypted volumes at the same time that the system volume is unlocked.