Updating Brew vs. updating Nix on MacOS

Development Documentation
1

Nix

From the doc, on MacOS:

Multi-user Nix users on macOS can upgrade Nix by running: sudo -i sh -c 'nix-channel --update && nix-env --install --attr nixpkgs.nix && launchctl remove org.nixos.nix-daemon && launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nixos.nix-daemon.plist'

Brew

brew update

Comment

brew update is quite intuitive (similar to apt update). If you are really lost, you can still type:

❯ brew
Example usage:
  brew search TEXT|/REGEX/
  brew info [FORMULA|CASK...]
  brew install FORMULA|CASK...
  brew update
  brew upgrade [FORMULA|CASK...]
  brew uninstall FORMULA|CASK...
  brew list [FORMULA|CASK...]

OTOH, sudo -i sh -c 'nix-channel --update && nix-env --install --attr nixpkgs.nix && launchctl remove org.nixos.nix-daemon && launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nixos.nix-daemon.plist' not so much (very hard to remember by heart, or to figure out without the doc).

1 Like