Solving Imperative to Declarative for nix-env

[rnhmjoj]

I’d also like to have a better way to manage environments on Non-NixOS systems. Home-Manager is often too much for new users and the ergonomics of nix-env and nix profile are not terribly good.

You can use nix-env in a declarative fashion to manage an environment much like home-manager but without all the complexity of NixOS modules. See this:

First time trying NixOS, random questions

It’s little known, but you can install packages declaratively even with nix-env. It’s much simpler than setting up home-manager. Here’s how: create a packages.nix file with with import <nixpkgs> {}; [ hello # packages here ] run nix-env -irf packages.nix: packages listed in the file will be installed, all packages not listed will be removed. change packages.nix, rerun the command and the changes will be applied.