Do you need to disable nix-darwin Nix management, if you're using Determinate installer *without* the Determinate distro?

[victorhooi]

I've installed Nix using the Determinate Nix installer - I didn't select to install their "Determinate" Nix distro - but just the vanilla one. (Sorry if I'm getting the terminology confused).

I did notice in their planner output that the nixd daemon is setup - although I think that's the default no matter whether you go vanilla Nix or Determinate, right?

Anyway, I then went through the nix-darwin README, and at this stage, it says I need to disable nix-darwin's management for nix:

victorhooi@MacBook-Pro nix-darwin % nix run nix-darwin/master#darwin-rebuild -- switch
building the system configuration...
error: Determinate detected, aborting activation
Determinate uses its own daemon to manage the Nix installation that
conflicts with nix-darwin’s native Nix management.

To turn off nix-darwin’s management of the Nix installation, set:

    nix.enable = false;

This will allow you to use nix-darwin with Determinate. Some nix-darwin
functionality that relies on managing the Nix installation, like the
`nix.*` options to adjust Nix settings or configure a Linux builder,
will be unavailable.

However, the nix-darwin README seems to suggest this is only needed if you're using the Determinate distribution:

The Nix installer from Determinate Systems is only recommended for use with flake-based setups. It can install one of two distributions of Nix:
By default, it will install vanilla upstream Nix with flakes enabled.
When run with the --determinate flag, it will install the Determinate distribution. As Determinate manages the Nix installation itself, you will need to set nix.enable = false; in your configuration to disable nix-darwin’s own Nix management. Some nix-darwin functionality that relies on managing the Nix installation, like the nix.* options to adjust Nix settings or configure a Linux builder, will be unavailable.

Just to confirm - do you need to disable nix-darwin's Nix management whenever you're using the Nix installer from Determinate Systems (even with vanilla Nix). Or did I get something wrong here in my setup?

[Enzime]

See #1349

[Enzime]

The easiest solution is to uninstall Determinate Nix and reinstall it making sure to specify no to Determinate Nix, see #1367

[TouriM]

How do you determine, if Determinate is installed? I uninstalled and re-installed twice today.

[emilazy]

@TouriM If you have /usr/local/bin/determinate-nixd then you have Determinate installed. nix-darwin will automatically print a message if you are using it and try to activate a system configuration without nix.enable = false;.

@victorhooi Hopefully this is clear already, but to be explicit we definitely support managing installations of vanilla Nix (and will continue to do so), and the Determinate Systems installer can still install vanilla Nix at the time of writing. I’m curious if you ran the installer with telemetry disabled or not (--diagnostic-endpoint '')? AIUI the Determinate prompt originally shipped without any explanatory text, but then had additional wording added via their telemetry API before the release today. Just wondering whether you missed that text because of disabling telemetry (or installing more than a few days ago), or if the updated wording was still confusing for you.

[TouriM]

@emilazy thanks! That was it. The uninstaller failed to delete determinate-nixd.